genealogy

Update: Historical Counties and Drawing Tools

March 24, 2024 by Randy Majors

Screenshot showing both historical county labels and civil township labels

First, the popular Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker chrome extension has been updated to work with the latest version of Ancestry’s website. Also, now when you use the Historical U.S. Counties map tool, you can explore the historical counties for any historical date in the context of civil townships. As you likely know, civil townships are often used in a lot of historical records from census to land ownership and more. Now, when you turn on labels for historical counties by checking the “Show historical county labels” box in the lower left corner of the map, if you also check the … Read more

AncestorSearch & PeopleSearch: limit your Google search to recently updated pages

April 10, 2021 by Randy Majors

AncestorSearch and PeopleSearch new Find pages updated dropdown

Do you have ancestors that you’ve searched Google for repeatedly over the years? If so, now you can quickly limit your search on AncestorSearch or PeopleSearch to only include pages created or updated in the past 24 hours, week, month or year as shown by the red boxes below: This will catch pages that are either NEW or UPDATED in the timeframe that you specify. Also, be sure and check out the other enhancements to the tools over the past couple of years. Have fun searching!

Quick Links: Individual County Maps with Townships

November 22, 2022 by Randy Majors

In case you want to see a map of civil townships for just one county at a time, here is a list of ALL U.S. Counties showing townships: Listing of all U.S. County Maps showing Civil Townships and Township Boundaries This will give you maps that look like this, using Champaign County, Illinois as an example: If you want to view ALL civil townships on one map, just use the Civil Townships map tool. There are also options to overlay civil townships on many other map tools, including in the lower left of the Historical U.S. Counties tool: If you’re … Read more

Video Walkthru: Historical U.S. Counties map tool and Auto-Checker extension

February 2, 2021 by Randy Majors

By popular request, I finally have gotten around to recording a couple of video walkthoughs of a couple of the tools. Certainly not polished and produced, but should give you a good understanding of these two tools: Walkthough of the Historical U.S. Counties map tool: Walkthrough of the Historical U.S. Counties chrome extension: I recommend you view them in the above order, as understanding the Historical U.S. Counties map tool will help you have better success with using the Auto-Checker chrome extension. Be easy on me please, as its my first foray into doing a screencapture walkthrough for youtube :) … Read more

Auto-checking of location facts in Ancestry Family Trees now available, plus new LifeMap!

July 19, 2021 by Randy Majors

While searching on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, the FREE Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker extension for Chrome* automatically checks that the county existed in the year you are searching, checks for valid places, warns of boundary changes, and links to historical county lines on Google Maps for the place and years you are searching. NEW! SEE A LifeMap OF YOUR ANCESTORS: If you are a randymajors.org Research Hub Contributor, you can link to a LifeMap showing all of the U.S. locations for each fact on any person profile page on Ancestry! It will show the Historical U.S. Counties as they existed as of … Read more

Let this FREE tool do the location work for you as you search on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org

July 19, 2021 by Randy Majors

Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker free version

U.S. county boundaries have changed over 17,600 times since America was settled in colonial times. Don’t sabotage your search for ancestors by not knowing the correct county for the historical years you are researching. While searching on Ancestry or FamilySearch, the free Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker extension for Google Chrome* automatically checks that the county existed in the year you are searching, warns of boundary changes, and links to historical county lines on Google Maps for the place and years you are searching! Install for free today and never let an ancestor fall of the map again! For a step-by-step … Read more

AncestorSearch Alert: Your ancestor is long gone, but Google may find something new tomorrow!

January 28, 2021 by Randy Majors

According to an internet study, Google is adding an average of 68 MILLION new web pages to its search index EVERY DAY! What if one of those new pages contains a mention of your ancestor? Think of all of the possibilities: new archives coming online all the time, old books and newspapers being scanned, people writing genealogy blog posts, newly indexed records becoming searchable…and so much more. So how do you make sure you don’t miss something important? To make it easier to remain informed about new pages that contain a mention of your ancestor, you can now SET A … Read more

Have you tried AncestorSearch on Google Search for searching for ancestors (or living people) lately?

January 28, 2021 by Randy Majors

QUICK LINK TO THE TOOL: AncestorSearch on Google Search For a change, this post focuses on Google Search rather than the Google Maps tools on this website. If you’ve tried searching for a mention of your ancestors (or living people) using Google Search, you’ve no doubt run into this little issue from time to time: 175 MILLION results? OK, this might take a while… Enter AncestorSearch on Google Search, a free search tool that uses Google search enhancements so that you are much more likely to find mentions of the ancestors (or living people) you’re looking for that are otherwise … Read more

Now use your current location on all randymajors.org mapping tools!

January 28, 2021 by Randy Majors

This enhancement applies all of the mapping tools on this website: County Lines on Google Maps ZIP Codes on Google Maps City Limits on Google Maps Township Range on Google Maps Location Explorer on Google Maps Climate Info on Google Maps Time Zones on Google Maps Area Codes on Google Maps Historical U.S. Counties on Google Maps On all of these randymajors.org mapping tools, you always had to start by typing in a city, address, place, etc. Now with this latest enhancement, if you want to know more about your current location, you can just click the “⊕ Locate” buttons in the upper … Read more

How you may be sabotaging your search for ancestors…and how to fix it!

January 28, 2021 by Randy Majors

UPDATED MARCH 2020: NEW! Let this FREE tool do the work for you as you search on Ancestry.com U.S. county boundaries have changed over 17,600 times since America was settled in colonial times. Don’t sabotage your search for ancestors by not knowing the correct county for the historical years you are researching. While searching on Ancestry, the free Historical U.S. Counties Auto-Checker extension for Google Chrome automatically checks that the county existed in the year you are searching, warns of boundary changes, and links to historical county lines on Google Maps for the place and years you are searching! Install … Read more