How to Hotlink to Your Favorite Maps (such as counties within a state)

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  • Susan Freas Rogers
    Member
    • Jan 2013
    • 151

    #1

    How to Hotlink to Your Favorite Maps (such as counties within a state)

    This may help others who often want to quickly see a map of (for example) county boundaries within a state.
    You could certainly use this process to create hotlinks to almost anything, but this is what I've done to catalog maps that I often want to see, and I wanted something quicker than finding them on my hard drive (even though I'm pretty fast at that).
    FWIW, I had asked LeisterPro to Wish-List a way to hotlink a map to a Places entry for any given state name, but their response was understandably tepid at best, so I figured this out instead.

    1. Using Google, I searched for the map I like best, went to its website and copied its URL to my Clipboard.

    2. I created a Source type called Maps, then I created a new Source of that new Maps type.

    3. In the new Source, I added the field URL, then typed in the state name and inserted the URL. It became a hotlink and will jump me to my favorite map of that state's counties. Bingo!

    To make it so I can actually use this quickly, I moved my new Maps Source to the #1 position in the Sources list panel:

    4. Checking my Source #1, I created a new Source of its same type (e.g., Book, Census or whatever). In one of the blank fields of the new Source, I typed "temp" (since something has to be filled in to actually create the new Source and make it stick).

    5. I made a mental note of the number of the new Source.

    6. Went to Source #1, right-clicked and chose Merge Source #1 With Another Source. When that window opened, I entered the number of the new Source I'd just made. This merged my Source #1 information into the new Source number. Clicked on the merged Source and deleted the field with "temporary" in it. Deleted any empty fields. Now, what used to be my Source #1 is much further down the list.

    7. This left me with no Source #1. Since I knew Reunion would make my next new Source be #1, I created that new Source #1, of the type Maps.

    8. Went back to the Maps source I had created at the start of this process (step #2 above). Right-clicked, chose Merge Source #x With Another Source and filled in the box to merge it with Source #1.

    9. Voila! My Maps Source is now at the top of the Sources list. I will add other favorite online state maps as needed and drag to alphabetize them as I go.

    This website has very nice free maps in both color and black-and-white, as PDFs and PNG files. For my hotlinks, I copied the URL of the PNG version of the state maps. https://suncatcherstudio.com/patterns/usa-county-maps/
  • jcherepy
    Member
    • Mar 2014
    • 88

    #2
    FYI. https://www.mob-rule.com/gmap is a website that displays Google Maps with county lines and when you place the cursor on the map it displays the county name.

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    • Susan Freas Rogers
      Member
      • Jan 2013
      • 151

      #3
      Jcherepy, thanks for the link which is interesting but not the kind of map I wanted for myself.

      My goal was to quickly access a small collection of state maps that show ALL county boundaries (and only county boundaries) at a glance. That is because, when I'm looking at records and see an interesting one in a county I don't recognize, I want to know how close that county is to the counties where I already know my people lived. "Is this record possibly about a relative who was living in the county next door at that time?"

      So, that's why I made this work-around. One could also just keep a doc on one's desktop with hotlinks to the desired maps, which would achieve the same goal.

      Comment

      • Bob White
        Member
        • Mar 2005
        • 1716

        #4
        You may want to look at Randy Majors (famous for his Ellis Island search site) county maps site. It covers the entire USA. Go to https://www.randymajors.org/countygm...ow&labels=show.
        Bob White, Mac Nut Since 1985, Reunion Nut Since 1991
        Computer Guy Since 1966 - Happy Octogenerian
        iMac/MacBookAir M4 - iPhone/iPadPro - Reunion14 & RT

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