Villages and Maps
Quick Jumps |
Helpful Hint: Many maps on the Internet can be viewed at two levels. The first makes detailed review impossible due to the small size. The enlarged view is so detailed that navigating is difficult. Right click the small image and download it to your computer. Then use your favorite picture viewer to open the image and enlarge it to a convenient size. Some downloads can take a long time due to large file sizes.
Maps in the first section are on this site. All other maps are linked to other websites.
SGGEE Map Resources
1. SGGEE Location Guidelines and Gazetteers
The possibility of finding an ancestral village on a map has many advantages and enriches your family research. Members of SGGEE have therefore created a guideline for locations and have assembled two village gazetteers in order to help with the search of villages of your ancestors especially in Eastern Europe. This will also serve to standardize the location naming and thus make the merging of your data with the Master Pedigree Database easier. We especially appreciate the efforts of Dr. Frank Stewner in Germany who was the primary contributor to this project. The gazetteers are copyright by Dr. Frank Stewner and are used by SGGEE with permission.
The standards below will help you to find your village and understand the governmental districts and boundary changes that have taken place over the past two centuries. The gazetteers will help you to find the villages and include actual map coordinates to take you to a precise location. They will also help you to correctly enter village locations in Legacy or other genealogy software. We will eventually make these gazetteers searchable with the ability to click the coordinate to go directly to a map for viewing.
A note about latitude and longitude given in the gazetteers: These are given in degrees-minutes-seconds [ddmmss]. Because of the curvature of the earth, the distance of one second varies with the degree of latitude. At 50° it is approximately 30 metres or 100 feet. Therefore the location shown is very precise and your actual village size will extend well beyond that specific location. To use these numbers in GOOGLE Earth, you will have to change the format to [dd mm ss N dd mm ss E].
- Standards for the locations in family data for the Master Pedigree Database (MPD) - short form.
- Standards for the locations in family data for the Master Pedigree Database (MPD) - detailed description (larger file size and with an appendix showing how to find your village)
- Volhynia Location Gazetteer. This gazetteer will appear as an Adobe page which can be searched using the Adobe "Find" feature. Fully searchable clickable database coming soon. Note: The most recent version included here includes numerous villages designated as "Kolonie", mostly from the time period after 1920. There is some dispute as to whether or not this designation automatically means that the villages are primarily Germanic. Since it is better to have more villages listed than not enough, it was decided to include them at this time.
- Russian (Congress) Poland Gazetteer -- A to L -- M to Z. This gazetteer will appear as an Adobe page which can be searched using the Adobe "Find" feature.
- Russian Empire Gazetteer (not including Russian Poland or Volhynia). This gazetteer will appear as an Adobe page which can be searched using the Adobe "Find" feature. This gazetteer is not comprehensive but includes all places listed in in our Master Pedigree Database.
- German Empire Gazetteer. This gazetteer will appear as an Adobe page which can be searched using the Adobe "Find" feature. Where applicable Polish, Russian Cyrillic and Lithuanian equivalents are shown.
2. SGGEE Scanned Maps Page
SGGEE has scanned a number of maps and converted them in a variety of formats.
3. Searchable Index to the SGGEE Scanned Maps
Search an index of the maps scanned by SGGEE. Gives the location by map name and grid coordinate.
4. Jerry Frank's Map of German Settlements of the 19th Century in Eastern Europe
5. Jerry Frank’s Maps of Russian Poland (PDF format)
Orientation map • Searchable Index for Poland maps available to members only
6. Jerry Frank’s Maps of Volhynia (PDF format)
Orientation map • Searchable Index for Volhynia maps available to members only
7. If you have ever wondered which district a village was located in within the province of Volhynia, then take a look at this map, created by Jerry Frank, that shows the district boundaries in Volhynia as they existed in 1899. The orange-brown lines are the boundaries. The same map by others in Russian.
Poland
The following are all off-site links.
1. Good Polish Road Map
When the web page opens, type in the name of the town under the red banner at the right and then click on "Pokaz". The map will display circles of all towns with that name and, in the bottom right, it will display additional info about the town. Double click anywhere on the map to bring up a road map of that area. A similar site is Mapa-Polska. The search engine here is more user friendly, not requiring diacritics and also reporting the province, which can help to narrow the selection.
2. Quick overview of Poland with maps showing all of Poland and its relationship to Prussia, Silesia, and Galicia.
3. Maps of the area around Lublin, Poland on Trevor and Ania Butcher's web site.
4. Map of Lubelskie province of Poland (this includes Lublin) as well as some data on the region.
5. Map of the provinces of Poland, today, and before 1998 This site is of use in knowing what juridsdiction a village was in prior to 1998. This is also useful when looking at gazeteers and maps, as they mostly predate 1998.
6. POSEN-L Polish place names and the associated Catholic parish (this is for Posen province in Prussia, also known as Poznan) German names are given for many of the Polish towns.
7. A map of Piotrkow Trybunalski This interactive map shows the streets and the buildings in this City south of Lodz. See also a history of Piotrkow (click the British flag top right for English version) and other information.
8. Uwe Kerntopf's Dobriner Land web site which has a listing of places in the Lipno and Rypin areas of Poland. The list includes the Polish name and the equivalent German name, and also the district and county. See the side bar at this site under "Ortschaften "
9. A series of maps showing the governing districts in Russian Poland in 1907 (Prussia is a separate country at this point, so these maps do not show that area of present-day Poland). There is a key map and then individual maps of each district. Not really detailed, but shows many of the larger towns, and gives a good idea of the district boundaries.
10. Central Vistula River Area For a good look at villages and pictures of villages in the general area of Plock, including some maps.
Volhynia
1. A good set of maps covering all of Ukraine is available on the Vlasenko site. Using these maps requires that you contend with Cyrillic and that you know an approximate region for the village. They are not indexed. Click on the grid for the region where you think your village is. There is unfortunately no good way to guess exactly where that will be. Experience with finding the village on older maps will help to pinpoint the region.
These maps do not have a convenient grid system to identify the right maps to use so Dave Obee has graciously provided us with one for both western and eastern Volhynia. Though Dave has provided the grid, the actual maps are not stored on his site.
2. Karlswalde, Volhynia maps follow the link to maps
3. The Archiwum Map site referenced below also has detailed maps of Volhynia but the indexing system is not easy to follow. You can find a grid map at the Polish language Strony O Wolyniu site. Use the link and click on "Mapy Sztabowe" to get to it. While there, browse other material on the site, all of interest but in the Polish language. Note that not all the eastern portions of Volhynia are available on the Archiwum Map site.
Maps of Poland, Volhynia, and other parts of Eastern Europe
1. Archiwum Map Wojskowego Instytutu Geograficznego is a site that is collecting and posting a variety of very detailed topographic maps of Europe including Poland and Volhynia and ranging from 1:25,000 scale to 1:300,000. There is no index so you have to know the general location of your village before you can use them. The very detailed scale makes them an excellent resource. The page is available in English. The collection is continuing to add new material. While there are gaps, go back regularly to see if they have been filled.
2. Jewish Shtetl Seeker
Index for most villages in Europe with links to maps showing the locations. This index is especially useful because of its sounds-like search that allows you to find places even if your input is misspelled.
3. Polish Maps
From the Polish Genealogical Society
4. FEEFHS Map Room
A variety of old maps covering eastern Europe.
5. 1910 Austrian Series
1:200,000 scale series covering all of East-central Europe. For an easier to use grid that only covers Volhynia, refer to Dave Obee's Volhynia website.
6. The "Slownik" series is a 15 volume geographical dictionary / gazetteer of Poland published 1880-1902 and previously only readily available on microfilm. It can now be viewed on line but it is recormmended that you use some English resources to help with your research. You will require the DjVu software to view the material. Two sites that provide the detail you need are the Halgal (East Galicia) website with a direct link to the source material and the PolishRoots site which provides some helpful guides to using the material.
7. Eksploracja provides maps especially covering regions of Gdansk and Pomerania in Prussia. The site is only in Polish but one can find their way around to some extent without knowing the language. Some downloads may take a long time, even on a high speed connection.
8. Map of Pomerania - pre WWII with high detail.
Maps and Village Locator for pre-World War I Germany
1. East Prussia maps (circa 1939)
This site is in German only. Use GOOGLE Translator to translate the page.
A key map is available where you can click on a specific area and it will bring up an enlarged section for it. To access, click on Ostpreussenkarten in the left menu. For an index of place names which will lead you to parish and other information along with the correct map number, use Ortsverzeichnisse in the left menu.
Once you have the village detail, note the map number. Go back to the key map and run your cursor over it. Look down to the lower left of your browser and watch the numbers change as you move your cursor. When you see your required number, click, and the correct detail map will open.
2. Kartenmeister is village locator for old Germany. The limits of the part of Germany covered are based on the borders of the eastern provinces of Germany in Spring 1918. Included in this database are the following provinces: Eastprussia, including Memel; Westprussia; Brandenburg; Posen; Pommerania; and Silesia. Includes some detail maps as well, some of which cover the Suwalki region of Russian Poland.
3. Meyers Orts Leksicon is a German language town and village gazetteer, especially relevant to Prussian regions. This link is to an "Ancestry" page which will require that you sign up as a "member" but there is, at this time, no cost or fees.