I've lived in New Jersey for more than 40 years, but I'll never be a real New Jersey girl. I grew up in Pennsylvania where there was lots of snow, one traffic light in town, and 90 kids in my grade--from kindergarten through graduation. I didn't know anything about The Shore, or baked ziti, or Chanukah until I came to Jersey. But, I've come to love all of that and much more--especially the history. I now know about the Jersey Dutch, strawberry baskets, railroad suburbs, the bridge that saved a nation, and so much more. I've learned that to tell the local stories about regular people I need to read wills, estate files, census records, pension applications, letters, tombstones, newspapers, and anything else I can find. So, that's some of what I want to share with you!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Digital Bergen County Maps


I have compiled a list of Bergen County maps available at the Heritage Center at the Ridgewood Public Library and available from your computer anywhere.  Not every map is available digitally, but many are and they are great fun to explore for the place and time period your ancestor lived.  See the page on the Ridgewood Library website.  It's not beautiful (yet), but it gathers in one place maps that are available online from institutions as diverse as Library of Congress, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the University of Alabama.  (Who would think that Alabama would have Bergen County maps!)

This is Ridgewood area in 1840--before the advent of the railroad.  There were a few roads, a church, and a few farms.  (from US Coast Survey map #32  available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Twenty years later the same area looks like this.  (from 1861 Corey Hopkins map of Bergen and Passaic Counties available from the Library of Congress)


The railroad linking Ridgewood with Jersey City (and via ferry, New York) has been there for 13 years, farms have gone up for sale and commuters are moving in.

Enjoy the maps! If you find any additional ones online, please let me know.  (I'm addicted.)


Thank you to T. Robins Brown of the Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs for a bibliography of Bergen County maps used in compiling this list.

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