I’ve been looking for where some ancestors lived this week and it was to historic maps of all sorts that I have turned in my quest to understand a bit more about the area that they lived and worked within during the period that they were alive.
Some of the areas in the towns have been “extensively remodelled” by a combination of Blitz bombing and modern town planners and so the roads have disappeared.
Here is a video that I put together a couple of years ago but it is still relevant today!
I read the following news with interest as when I research my Scottish ancestors a map is always useful in understanding their environment.
From ScotlandsPeople
More than 2,400 historic maps, plans and drawings from National Records of Scotland (NRS) collections have been made available on the ScotlandsPeople website. Many of the maps show the changing Scottish landscape over time. They also record where people lived or worked, so they can throw light on ancestors’ lives and even suggest new avenues for research. The maps and plans cover certain areas of Scotland, but not the whole of the country. They include both country estates and plans of towns and cities, including for example Glasgow. Most of the maps and plans originate in the records of court cases, Scottish government departments, Heritors’ records, as well as in private collections gifted to or purchased by NRS.
The maps and plans collection is amongst the finest in the UK and contains the largest number of Scottish manuscript maps and plans held by any single institution. Spanning four centuries, the collections cover both manuscript and printed topographical maps and plans. They are particularly strong in estate and railway plans; architectural drawings; and engineering drawings, particularly of ships, railway engines and rolling stock. More maps and plans will be added to the ScotlandsPeople website.
Plan of the Carron River from Carron works to Grangemouth, 1797 National Records of Scotland, RHP242/2
This plan of the Carron River was drawn in 1797 by John Ainslie, one of the foremost mapmakers of his time. His great map of Scotland, drawn between 1787 and 1788, was a landmark in clarifying the outline of Scotland. The River Carron is almost 14 miles in length; rising in the Campsie Fells it is shown here passing what was one of the most important industrial sites in Scotland, the Carron Works which manufactured cast iron goods, and continuing down towards Grangemouth.
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