For Your Maximum Viewing Pleasure

Yesterday, I released one of the most frequently requested features for the Historical U.S. County Boundary Maps tool (as a reminder, this tool lets you view on a Google Map the county boundaries as of any HISTORICAL date or year for ANY U.S. location!).

The new functionality is simple but very useful:  the ability to work with a much larger map in an immersive full screen experience!  (Also, keep reading to learn of a couple more enhancements.)

To go into fullscreen view, just hit the button in the upper right corner of the map, highlighted in redbelow.  You will see a much larger map window, as shown in the bottom image below!  It’s difficult to show the difference in size in a blog post of a limited width, so the images below are captured at the same scale for comparison.

You’ll really see the difference when you display the county boundaries and zoom in on the map, as shown below.  And you can continue to work with the map, change dates, locations, etc. while remaining in fullscreen mode.  When you’re done, just hit the upper right button again or hit the Esc key to get out of fullscreen view.  (By the way, sorry, but Google Maps does not support full screen functionality on iOS, so the fullscreen functionality will be best leveraged on your desktop or laptop computer.)

Also new: the information about the county boundary change from the Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is now shown at the bottom of the map, highlighted in redbelow.  This includes details on the latest boundary change as of the date you typed, and reference to the particular statute that triggered the boundary change.

Finally, the “Show Research Locations” option is now at the bottom of the map (shown at the bottom of the highlighted redbox above), and includes many more options you can overlay on the map.  These are places you can visit to potentially do more research or find more records for your ancestors.  Here’s the full listing:

Then, click the icons that appear on the map, as they will link you to more information about the place, including Find A Grave listings for cemeteries!

Also, be sure and read the updated Quick Tips underneath the map, also shown below for your convenience:

I hope you find these improvements useful!  Please leave comments below if you have any questions, issues or ideas for future improvements!