Yesterday, I spotlighted the Map History/History of Cartography new GeneaGem.

One of the most well known map collections is the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

If you haven’t ever used the Rumsey collection, it is fabulous and I wanted to point out a somewhat unique feature – it is possible to search the TEXT on the MAP!

This is a relatively new feature, a year or so old, but it is a handy tool that lets users easily search the collection. Notice the search box at the top of the image.

There are two choices – you can search for a map in the collection, by name of the place, or you can search TEXT ON MAPS.

The Text on Maps option permits not only locations, but also key words that might identify businesses, cemeteries, farms and other places that are identified on maps.

Note, though, that if you are looking for a map of Linn County, Iowa and hope to see your ancestor’s farm marked on the map, that will only happen if the particular map perhaps found in the Rumsey collection actually shows that farm. This search text box only looks at maps in the Rumsey collection, not at maps found in any other digital collections.

Here are several search examples:

Westminster Abbey by itself brought up quite a few hits:

A search for “Congregational Church, Calais, Maine” returned zero results.

Searching for “winery” with no location brought up far fewer results than one might expect. Most were for wineries in California or the Niagara regions, but I did see one hit for Frisia:

“Farm” brought up a huge number of hits – more than 27,000+, on maps from English speaking places and it included international maps.

My last search was for “Blacksmith”, which seemed to include a few results for “locksmith.” There were 552 instances where blacksmith locations were found on maps.

Maps are fun to browse. Take some time to visit the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection and try out the Text on Maps option in your own searches.