These outstanding tools should help you identify and locate the place your ancestors came from. If you know of other tools that are useful and should be included in this list, please send me the URL.
Tool | Comments | ||
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JewishGen's ShtetlSeeker allows you to search for place names in any or all Eastern and Central European countries. Contains place names in different languages and allows searching for similar sounding names. Just click on the place names that are returned to verify the exact location on an interactive MapQuest map. | |||
Global Gazetteer | Global Gazetteer is a directory of 2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map for each town. Presentation © 1998 by Carl Rosenberg. | ||
Europe Forms of Place Names |
Europe - Forms of Place Names is a fascinating site with historic place names in a host of different languages, including Greek and Cyrillic versions. | ||
Thesaurus of Geographic Names |
The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Allows you to search for a place name and lists synonyms in a variety of different languages. Provides a hierarchical structure (continent, region, country, province, town, etc..) as well as historical background information. Disadvantage: the DB doesn't yet contain many of the small villages that we often hunt for. | ||
MS Expedia Maps - Place Finder is nicely integrated, automatically displays the respective map, similar sounding place names with information about country and province and even provides useful links for the places it finds. Disadvantage: the DB doesn't have all old place names and the level of detail on the maps is not as good as on some other systems. | |||
The Historical Atlas of Austria is a useful companion if you are researching former Austria. It costs about Euro 35 (which is roughly the same in US$ -- see currency exchange rates) and can be ordered via Amazon Germany (if you understand enough German to fill in the details). 232 pages, 120 maps, 140 graphics. German language.
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ETB - Austrian Phone Directory has an advanced search facility that allows the lookup of place names. See usage tips. |
Some other things you could check: