u/Total-Ad4827

Earlier this month I posted the statewide historical marker map here. This is a closer look at one town.

The Library of Congress holds John Bachelder's 1876 maps of Gettysburg, drawn on the Warren survey of the field and built up from years of veterans' accounts of where each unit stood. I could not find georeferenced versions of them anywhere, so I georeferenced them, and then set five PHMC markers on them as stops.

https://preview.redd.it/avg917gvbrjh1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=4be89d1993a3cf5d3ea9452bf0f890dee6b0c370

The July 1 marker on US 30 west of town opens on Bachelder's first-day sheet. East Cavalry Field opens on an 1880 map of the Gregg and Stuart fight, which comes in two sheets, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 2 to 5 p.m. The Wills House and the Gettysburg Address markers open on the 1873 Warren survey. Any stop can be flipped to the other sheets that cover it.

The two town markers were the pair I did not expect. Read together, the state's own text says Lincoln wrote the address in Washington, revised it after he reached Gettysburg on the evening of November 18, and completed it in David Wills's house on the square.

https://preview.redd.it/nq48ygtybrjh1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=692a4ce80f06cfa4fae5ae792cb9ec9d67c7360d

I built the site this runs on. It is free, no ads and no account, the marker text is PHMC's and credited on every stop, and the sheets are credited to the Library of Congress and the David Rumsey collection. Corrections welcome, on the georeferencing or anything else I got wrong.

https://treealive.com/markers/pa/trail/gettysburg-1863

John Bachelder spent years collecting veterans' accounts to fix where every unit stood at Gettysburg, and his three official day-by-day maps were published in 1876 on the Warren survey base. The Library of Congress has high-resolution scans, but I could not find georeferenced versions anywhere, so I georeferenced all three myself.

https://preview.redd.it/x737ywtlzljh1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=416eaf0697ff8b9d6eeea7201baf5c85d706850a

Then I lined up five of Pennsylvania's official state markers as stops on top of them: the marker where the fighting opened on July 1 on the Day 1 sheet, East Cavalry Field on the 1880 Gregg and Stuart engagement map, the retreat marker on the Day 3 sheet, and the Wills House and Gettysburg Address markers on the 1873 Warren survey. Each stop shows the marker's official text (PHMC's words, credited), and you can flip any stop to the other sheets, including all three Bachelder days.

https://preview.redd.it/7ovhntsnzljh1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a6828c1447394d5aface4f6646771676bbad987

I built the site this runs on, so this is my own work. Corrections welcome: sheet choice per stop, georeferencing errors you can spot against ground features, anything I got wrong.

https://treealive.com/markers/pa/trail/gettysburg-1863

The Battle of Fort Sullivan marker stands on Sullivan's Island, out by Fort Moultrie. The text is the state program's own: 435 men under Col. William Moultrie in an unfinished fort of palmetto logs, against nine ships and up to 3,000 infantry, and log walls that "absorbed or deflected the British shells." The reverse ends by saying that is where the Palmetto State nickname comes from.

The map under the pin is a 1776 plan of that attack, from the Boston Public Library. The island is lettered SULIVAN'S on it, with the Myrtle Grove written across the middle. The pin sits on the little star fort the mapmaker drew, and east of that, out in the water, something is labeled an Armed Hulk.

https://preview.redd.it/78rkbm46gjjh1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=36c62e648d371a073783a32b99619a6cf1039b17

Where a sign is lettered on both sides, both sides are on the page. A 1708 French map of Carolina sits under 88 of them. The oldest marker with a date on it went up in 1938 and the newest this year.

The text is the South Carolina Historical Marker Program's. Archives and History is credited on every page, with a link back to them. Nearly every page also names the local group that put the marker up. Fort Sullivan's was the Fort Sullivan Chapter of the DAR.

Archives and History has its own marker map and it is good. What I did differently is put the inscription on the old map of the ground it describes.

https://treealive.com/markers/sc

70 of these markers are flagged missing in the program's own records, and those pages say so. Another 20 records in their list have no page here at all. Eight have no coordinate on file. Six put their coordinates in one county and name another, so there is no pin I can defend. The rest are old casts the program already replaced, and the replacement is the one with the page.

https://preview.redd.it/kete5d59gjjh1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=f87abd33675d3e48153db2285645bcfb7eca4b12

My ancestors mostly were Pennsylvania, and the first time I pointed my tree at that state's markers it came back with more than seventy of them within ten miles of somewhere my family had actually lived, and that is why I kept going. If your line runs through here, it will do the same with these.

The marker for the Cathedral of St. Augustine calls the parish "the oldest Catholic parish within the present day United States," dating from a mass celebrated in 1565. Its pin lands on a sheet engraved in Venice in 1778 by Antonio Zatta. The town is on it as S. Agoſtino, spelled with the old long s.

https://preview.redd.it/jbydcpzuh1jh1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e35d91c76574f63227d272b976fcee3a45c35ee

That is one of 1,219 Florida state historical markers I put online, across 65 counties, each with its full inscription. The maps under them run from a 1764 chart to the modern day.

https://preview.redd.it/gfbjuvlyh1jh1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad0ab6a92d8d4b4f58b30e61cd8d60d03b977e63

Down in Key West, the 1921 USGS quadrangle of the island carries nine markers. Among them is the African Cemetery at Higgs Beach: "Near this site lie the remains of 294 African men, women and children who died in Key West in 1860."

The inscriptions are the program's own words, credited and linked on every page to the Florida Historical Marker Program, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State.

https://treealive.com/markers/fl

Locations come from the program's records. Where the state's coordinates and its stated county disagree, I left the marker out until I can be sure, so 1,219 is not quite the whole list.

When looking at another state, my tree's Pennsylvania roots matched 77 markers there to my own line, which is the whole reason it exists. Florida makes ten states included on the site now, so a Florida tree gets checked against all of these markers, and against the other nine states if your people arrived from somewhere else. It's completely free with no login or anything else.

Starting in 1930 the Minnesota Historical Society picked the sites and wrote the inscriptions for a run of roadside historical markers, and the State Highway Department made the signs and set them up. By 1940 there were 112 of them on the state's trunk and U.S. highways, and a WPA survey published a guide that printed all 112 inscriptions word for word. 107 of them are on the map. Each page has the whole 1940 entry and the old maps that cover that spot.

https://preview.redd.it/fh5mw51m41jh1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=af4381968cfa37a2fbdfa3637e307848557c0854

The First Iron Mine marker near Soudan records that the first commercial shipment of Minnesota iron ore left the Breitung pit on July 31, 1884, over a railroad Charlemagne Tower and associates had just finished building to open the Vermillion Range. Under the pin is a Map of Northern Minnesota from 1874, ten years earlier. It letters Vermillion Lake right where the pin sits. Around it the mapmaker drew forest in every direction and one road running south.

https://preview.redd.it/tqm5p59o41jh1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6a1ca1d3a59ed1f82eb0162dd393c852442368e

Marker text comes from the 1940 guide, "Guide to Historic Markers Erected by the State Highway Department Cooperating with the Minnesota Historical Society," published by the Minnesota Historical Records Survey Project, Work Projects Administration. It is public domain and credited on every page.

https://treealive.com/markers/mn

Five of the 112 could not be placed from what the book says. One of them, entry 99, gives a location that lands in one county and names another, so there is no pin I can defend. Nothing in the guide is a coordinate, so the pins are my best reading and the pages say so. These pages show the 1940 book, not what stands on the road now. The text is served exactly as printed, including the era's own terms, and every page carries a line saying Minnesota now calls the 1862 conflict the U.S.-Dakota War and has since replaced the wording on some of these signs.

The site's actual job is family trees. I ran my own Pennsylvania family through it and it turned up 77 markers near the places they lived. Free, no account needed.

The marker program here is the oldest in the country. It started in 1927, and the state printed a companion guidebook so travelers could read the inscriptions without stopping the car. By 1948 the book was in its sixth edition, with every inscription in full plus the letter-and-number symbol cast on each post.

That book is public domain now, so I put it online. 826 of its markers got a page with the full 1948 text, placed on georeferenced maps from the era it describes.

https://preview.redd.it/woe6x8bc3mih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=896cf00840920529c99c7b8680a09e6e54614f41

The book puts "To Yorktown" at Lee Hall in Newport News: "On this road, seven miles north, is Yorktown, where Cornwallis surrendered to Washington and Rochambeau on October 19, 1781." The map under it was drawn by the French in 1781, and its title, translated, is the part of Virginia where the combined army of France and the United States took Lord Cornwallis's army prisoner on October 19, 1781. Same date on both.

https://preview.redd.it/jss7ewrf3mih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=14fc32161f03c63037232b186198c4c3fb30e5eb

The texts are exactly as printed in 1948 and the pages say so. Virginia has revised or replaced a lot of marker texts since then. The current program belongs to the Department of Historic Resources. Locations in the book are road distances measured from 1948 town limits, so the pins are approximate, and the pages say that too. Text comes from the state's own guidebook, scanned at HathiTrust, credited on every page.

https://treealive.com/markers/va

The site is really a family tree mapper, that's why I built it. My own family is from Pennsylvania, and 77 of that state's markers turned out to stand near places my ancestors lived. Run a Virginia family through it and it does the same with these. Free, no account.

In 1930, for the 300th anniversary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Commonwealth cast 275 iron markers and set them along the roads, one story each, with the text revised by the historian Samuel Eliot Morison. I put all 275 on a map. Every dot is a page with that marker's full 1930 inscription, placed on georeferenced maps from the period it commemorates.

https://preview.redd.it/pxx5zqyjfdih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=0e5f31dee0ed95d8569930d6e4dfe98ded88e2ca

Here is one of them. Merrymount, on Pilgrim Boulevard in Quincy: "Thomas Morton, a merry Englishman, set up an eighty-foot maypole here in 1627, named the place Ma-re Mount, and dispensed good cheer. The Puritans, scandalized by his revels and endangered by his arms traffic with the Indians, deported him and cut the maypole down." The oldest sheet under that pin is John Smith's map of New England, printed in 1624, three years before Morton raised his maypole. On it the water north of the pin is lettered "Talbotts Bay" and the shore just south of it "London," part of a set of English names Prince Charles handed out that mostly never took. Five sheets sit under this marker, 1624 to 1852.

https://preview.redd.it/g5h0gfumfdih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=442faec08b20d6f82ecc5daaf760f83eab614a51

What pulled me into this: a lot of these signs are not out there anymore. When MassDOT began restoring markers in 2019, about 174 of the original 275 were still standing, and nobody seems to have a firm accounting of the rest. The 1930 book that lists every one of them is still complete, so the map is complete even where the roadside is not.

Marker text comes from the Commonwealth's own 1930 book, "Historical Markers Erected by Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary Commission," scanned at archive.org, public domain by age and credited on every page.

https://treealive.com/markers/ma

The 1930 book gives each marker's location in words, "Route 3A near Spring Street," not coordinates, so every pin here is approximate and every page says so. The inscriptions are served exactly as cast in 1930, which means some of them carry 1930's framing of colonial history, particularly where they describe Native people. I did not rewrite any of it. Each page says "1930 text, presented as a historical document."

I built this because I map family trees. When I ran my own tree against these, 14 of the 275 stood near places my ancestors lived. If your family is from Massachusetts, it will show you which markers stand near their places. Free, no account needed.

Every dot on this statewide map is a page with the marker's full inscription, placed on georeferenced maps from the period it commemorates.

https://preview.redd.it/6bwttgrz89ih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=d025dc022013c3f6c176867b485417e01b4c068f

Here's a single marker: The Landing of Cadillac, on Woodward Avenue near Hart Plaza in Detroit, with its text on the page in both English and French. On July 24, 1701, in the marker's words, "Cadillac landed and planted the flag of France, taking possession of the territory in the name of King Louis XIV." The oldest sheet under it is an 1815 Map of Detroit River and Adjacent Country, where the mapmaker drew the star-shaped fort and the small town grid on that same stretch of riverbank; the map picker on the page runs from 1815 to 1903.

https://preview.redd.it/i29pifc299ih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=4929cd68657be98d0a0688239c65d2c5adc8f1fb

Marker data is the Michigan History Center's own public dataset, credited on every page. Where a marker has different text on each side, both sides are on the page, including the French on some Detroit-area markers, exactly as cast.

https://treealive.com/markers/mi

I built it because I map family trees. When I ran my own Pennsylvania family against that state's markers, 77 of them stood near places my ancestors lived. If your family is from Michigan, it will show you which markers stand near their places. Free, no account needed.

Every dot on this statewide map is a page with the marker's full inscription, placed on georeferenced maps from the period it commemorates.

https://preview.redd.it/hulyemltm6ih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=311ff9c7c40f468319fb6502aa60a66f81bca8bf

Here's a single marker: Trenton Ferry, where Washington crossed through Trenton on the way to his inauguration in 1789. It's pinned on a 1777 plan of Washington's operations in New Jersey, and the mapmaker drew and labeled the ferry itself. You can step between sheets from 1777 to 1807.

https://preview.redd.it/7ajst36wm6ih1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=37b10be5541d704c1612e4f0e78c891c8290264d

Marker data is the New Jersey Historical Commission's own public list, credited on every page.

https://treealive.com/markers/nj

The state list runs to 428 markers. One of them I can't yet place reliably, so it's not on the map, and markers the list locates only by its old survey notes are labeled "location approximate" on their pages until I can do better.

I built it because I map family trees. When I ran my own family against these markers, 61 of New Jersey's stood near places my ancestors lived, from Newark and Morristown down to Salem County. If your family is from New Jersey, it will show you which markers stand near their places. Free, no account needed.

Correction: the state list is 455 markers, not 428. I dropped the whole Somerset County section transcribing the state's PDF. Two people in this thread caught it within an hour of posting. 27 Somerset markers are up now, so 454 of 455.

Every dot on this statewide map is a page with the marker's full inscription, placed on georeferenced maps from the period it commemorates.

https://preview.redd.it/91xhvs3vm5ih1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=da51e00d331b9c76d3c0d1339164ad2342d99eab

Here's a single marker: Battle of Hubbardton, the only Revolutionary War battle fought on Vermont soil, pinned on a 1795 map of Vermont. You can step between sheets from 1761 to 1804.

https://preview.redd.it/h5pyt4yxm5ih1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdc27b472b7c4f50255725ab9b3d5f666ea4a56a

Marker data is the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation's own public dataset, credited on every page.

https://treealive.com/markers/vt

I built it because I map family trees. When I ran my own Pennsylvania family against that state's markers, 77 of them stood near places my ancestors lived. If your family is from Vermont, it will show you which markers stand near their places. Free, no account needed.

Every dot on this statewide map is a page with the marker's full inscription, placed on georeferenced maps from the period it commemorates.

https://preview.redd.it/45zdwfgcf0ih1.png?width=1950&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f6eb2b6b02c476b50f8e862131eed507b7cbf0f

Here's what a single marker looks like: the McClean House marker in York on a 1780 map of the province. You can step between sheets from 1780 to 1796.

https://preview.redd.it/atj1utyef0ih1.png?width=1344&format=png&auto=webp&s=42b87e002eef98a0c2247fd438825c2f0d76354f

Marker data is PHMC's own public dataset from data.pa.gov, credited on every page.

https://treealive.com/markers/pa

I built it because I map family trees, and 77 of these markers turned out to stand near places where my own ancestors lived. If you do family research it will show you yours too. Free, no account needed.

Which marker did you look for first?

I’m a family-history hobbyist and the creator of TreeAlive. We were recently listed in the Family Search Solutions Gallery and I wanted to offer to answer any questions anyone may have about the tool.

America turns 250 this weekend. I have read plenty about 1776 over the years, but this is the first year it feels personal, because of something I found in my own tree.

In the winter of 1780 the Continental Army camped on my ancestor's family farm outside Morristown, New Jersey. Washington spent that same winter headquartered in the same town, a few miles up the road. The soldiers who froze through the hardest winter of the war did it partly on land my family farmed. Those names and dates sat in my tree for years and never registered. What finally made it land was seeing the two dots next to each other on a map drawn in 1807.

For background: I posted here a few weeks ago about the free migration map tool I built. Since then I added something I honestly made just for myself. It checks the places and dates in your GEDCOM against documented locations of well known historical figures and flags when someone in your tree was in the same place at the same time as one of them. That is how I found this.

If you have Revolutionary War era ancestors, this weekend is a pretty good time to find out whether you are sitting on a story like this. Link is in the comments. As before, I would rather hear what is broken or confusing than compliments.

https://reddit.com/link/1ung2zf/video/g12kcmpu99bh1/player

I built this. It is a free tool called TreeAlive that takes a family tree (a GEDCOM file, or a FamilySearch import) and animates each person's path across period-accurate historical maps, decade by decade. The clip is my own family spreading across America over 400+ years. A static lineage chart shows how people connect. I wanted to see the movement too.

It is FamilySearch Compatible and free. You can try the built-in examples (lines like Washington's and Lincoln's) without making an account, or load your own tree at treealive.com.

Happy to get into how the geocoding and the historical-map overlays work, since matching each ancestor to the right period map was the hard part. Not a replacement for a good wall chart, more the moving companion to one.

For America's 250th, I animated my entire family tree (every branch, about 2,800 people) as a migration map laid over how America's borders actually changed from 1565 to 2026.

Each glowing dot is an ancestor's life event at the place it happened, and each line is a move. You can watch the family cross from Europe, cluster along the colonial seaboard, then fan out west as the territory opens up.

The borders underneath are real for each year: colonial claims, the Louisiana Purchase, statehood, all the way to the modern map.

For America's 250th birthday celebration, I animated my entire family tree (every branch, about 2,800 people) as a migration map laid over how America's borders actually changed from 1565 to 2026.

Each glowing dot is an ancestor's life event at the place it happened, and each line is a move. You can watch the family cross from Europe, cluster along the colonial seaboard, then fan out west as the territory opens up. One thread that stands out: the Acadian expulsion is the only branch that flows back east across the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to France.

The borders underneath are real for each year: colonial claims, the Louisiana Purchase, statehood, all the way to the modern map.