My research has taken a detour…no, not even a detour. It’s a full-on road block. All because of this monster of a map. Just look at it! I know that I’m looking at it in the right direction, because the heading is at the top of the page. And yet…the left side property owners have all been written upside down. The right side property owners are all facing sideways.

Forget getting dizzy just from trying to turn the page in whichever direction you’re reading. It’s actually trying to read the thing that gives me a headache. It’s a monster.

But this is where I’m at in my family history narrative and I can’t move forward until I get this map out of the way and out of my mind.

I wish ol’ William Hulbert were here to talk me through all of his old neighbors.

I have found William’s land that was owned on this map – easy breezy. But I have to wonder if there aren’t other researchers out there like me, who haven’t been so lucky as to be able to decipher the handwriting? Wouldn’t I love to find this map alongside a new one…redone, transcribed…to be able to read all of the names that are on it, and not just a few?

Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story, and there is good news! 

A genealogy angel contacted me and located a cleaner copy of this map that is also larger and easier to read, and I now have a digital copy of the map – actually, the entire book that the map appears in – on my computer.

I wonder what the aforementioned genie-angel would consider to be an adequate payment for this discovery? Oreos? Mt. Dew? Hershey Bar? (What? I’d splurge for the King size!)

~C.