the david rumsey historical map collection:

The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. Collection categories include antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, childrens and manuscript maps. The collection can be used to study history, genealogy and family history.

bloody excellent is what it is and i’ve a) barely scratched the surface yet and b) am looking in a totally different place to where the collection is at its thickest. i’m scouring a fabulous street map of 1830 birmingham, published by the wonderfully named ‘society for the diffusion of useful knowledge’, looking for all the places mentioned in my family history researches that don’t appear on modern day maps. and i’m finding them!

(minor niggle: all the united kingdom maps are filed under ‘england’ in the search list. grrr. england != great britain != united kingdom.)

[found via jwz - the ‘insight browser’ works fine for me using mozilla/linux even though it failed miserably for jamie.]