| Dear Fellow Genealogist,
Genealogy in the US has a way of turning one location into four questions: what county were your ancestors in? Did the boundaries change? Which courthouse holds the records? And why is the place name spelled three different ways depending on the decade?
Historical maps can help untangle that mess. They show how counties, townships and communities changed over time. And they can also make it easier to put your ancestors in the right place before you start digging through the wrong record set. (Even if your ancestor didn't cross a county line, the county line might have crossed them.)
In today's newsletter, we highlight useful historical maps for Pennsylvania research, just in time for our immersive course later today on researching in Pennsylvania county courthouses and archives.
Below you'll also find tips for using search engines more effectively in your genealogy research and what hidden clues to look for in vital records.
Trying one more spelling variant of a surname in a Google search,
— Katharine, Digital Editor of Family Tree Magazine
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