Allison Dolan - The Family Tree Historical Atlas of American Cities

CINCINNATI, OHIO

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For many of our ancestors, life in the big city represented (as it still does today) making it: the endless opportunities to rise from humble beginnings and live together in a growing, diverse community.

And partially because of that, we can see US history mirrored in the histories of American cities. As the Industrial Revolution ramped up, city populations (and boundaries) swelled as people flocked in from the countryside to meet the growing demand for labor. Cities such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Houston flourished from the population boom, while towns along trade routes on rivers (Cincinnati, St. Louis) and lakes (Chicago, Cleveland) exploded from the new business. As gold was discovered out west, tens of thousands flocked to Golden Coast cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco in the hopes of claiming riches.

At around the same time, waves of immigrants, driven by persecution or economic hardship in their own countries, came in through some of Americas oldest and most culturally diverse localesNew York, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Washingtonand settled within city limits. There, they joined friends and family from the old country in seizing the economic opportunities the city provided and pursuing the American Dream.

The Family Tree Historical Atlas of American Cities is an attempt to capture that legacy and put it to good use: identifying your ancestors who spent time in these cities and discovering more about them. This book contains maps of the sixteen most historically populous cities in the United States, all important cultural and economic centers.

By viewing maps of these cities throughout time, you can discover rich details about your ancestors lives. What did your ancestors hometown looked like in the olden days? How might your ancestor have been affected by the place he lived in? Use city directories and other resources such as census returns to find where your ancestors lived or worked, then plot the address out one of the maps in this book. You could even compare what you find to modern maps to see how your ancestors neighborhoods and communities have changed over time (if they still exist at all).

Weve included as many of these maps in as much detail as a book will allow, choosing to include the most representative part of each citys landscape. Given the detail in many of these maps, youll want to view some maps (particularly larger cities such as Los Angeles, Houston, and the five boroughs of New York City) through a magnifying glass. Youll also notice that not all cities contain map coverage from the same time period; this is partially due to each citys unique history, as many of Americas most important cities werent founded until the mid-1800s (or even later).

Fortunately, all of these maps are available online, many of them at free and easy-to-use repositories like the David Rumsey Map Collection and the Library of Congress Digital Collection . If youd like to view the maps from this book in even more detail, download them for personal use, or find additional maps to use in your research, check out the index in the back of this book for each maps full name and citation information.

In addition to maps, each citys entry contains a list of key facts about the city and a timeline of historically significant events, plus a list of websites and organizations to refer to when looking for records. Each chapter also contains a breakdown of the availability of key record types, including city directories, census records, vital records, and censuses.

Take it from this fifth-generation Cincinnatian: Where we live is a crucial part of us and our stories, and that was just as true for our ancestors. Whether your ancestor passed through a city or called himself a lifelong resident, you can reveal all sorts of precious information by researching the metropolises he found himself in.

Andrew Koch

Editor, Family Tree Books

Maryland

Baltimore (16591851)

Independent city (1851present)

80.9 square miles

1729

1796

Charm City, Mobtown, Bmore, The City of Firsts, Monument City, Ravenstown

The Greatest City in America

African-American, English, German

Shipping, manufacturing, steel processing, sugar refining