Good maps are great for genealogical research. Landowner maps are perfect tools for assisting your ancestor hunt.  Once you have a general idea of the time and place of your ancestor, you should turn your search to finding mapd that document landowners of the time period. These may be legal land administration maps, subscription county maps, or any map referred to as a cadastral map. When looking online, try to search with both "land ownership" and "cadastral" as keywords to see which produces. A cadastral map is a very specific type of map that records legal land parcel boundaries and ownership. Examples of cadastral maps would be land survey plat maps and the modern Wake County iMaps  (an interactive geographic system (GIS) maintained by the City of Raleigh).    A cadastral map is but one type of map with names included. Other maps with recorded names exist that are just as useful though they may not be considered official. Topographic maps and county subscription...