Maps are an ideal way to get a snapshot view of how places have changed, especially during the Industrial Revolution as canals, then railways, then motorways transformed the landscape. Seeing the surroundings of your ancestor’s home may also reveal what they may have done for a living: mines, ironworks and quarries, for example, will have affected the lives of entire communities.
John Speed published the first set of county maps – often including some town plans too – in 1610, and they remain in print today. Strip-style route maps following specific roads and showing the distances and contours between places began with John Ogilby’s 1675 road atlas – a good way to see how far your ancestors might have travelled to trade, for example.
Your nearest county record office may hold town plans dating as far back as Tudor times, along with other useful collections such as 18th century land enclosure maps and 19th century tithe apportionment maps recording each field and building in a parish.
The Ordnance Survey began publishing maps in 1801, at a scale of one inch to the mile, then in the 1840s it began the ‘County Series’ with a generous scale of six inches to the mile (approximately 1:10,000). The counties were only fully covered by 1890, by which time the OS had also produced most of the invaluable 1:2500 County Series. The latter covered the inhabited areas and offer a wonderful level of detail for historians – right down to the location of the pump or well your ancestors may have drawn water from.
