ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the importance of maps as tools and sources for genealogists and historical geographers, and the limitations of both paper and digital sources. A genealogist's ultimate goal is to identify and verify each relation along his or her family tree. Critical to a genealogical investigation is determining the locations of past ancestral habitats and translating them into present day geographic terms. While most genealogists and local historians lack the skills for presenting their findings within a GIS, or geographic information system, many have employed graphic methods to visualize the locale of interest. Historical geographers, social historians, and genealogists, as well other scholars concerned with the past, often need to visualize settlement patterns of earlier periods to carry out their research. Genealogists deal with perhaps the broadest and most diverse assortment of historical evidence in order to reconstruct their family's lineage.
