When you are researching your family history, learning where they lived helps you find out more information about them. It’s even better when you can see who their neighbors were and where that store they owned sat.

Image shows a map of West point Iowa in 1916, with the city colored light green. All text is hand written, with the names of various landowners written in.
A plat map of West Point, Iowa from 1916. The map shows things like the post office, churches, schools, and the fair grounds south of town.

We can see on this map that the hotel is in section two, lot ten. The post office is across the square in section five, lot eighteen.

Plat maps are used to help define property lines and show the easements for roads and utilities. They are supposed to help prevent the need to survey the land repeatedly for titles and so forth.

There are two references used on plat maps – metes and bounds. Metes refer to boundaries marked by measurement along a straight line. Bounds are more general descriptions using natural features such as creeks or other physical features like a stone wall.

When Walt and I were researching some family stories, we were fortunate to have a friend who had an old plat book of Lee County. She allowed us to make copies of relevant maps. Plat maps helped us sort out things like the Bruegenhempke place and its location in relation to other family property, as talked about in this post.

Image has a description of the maps and other information covered in the book. It includes publisher information.
This image tells information about the book, including which maps are inside and who the publisher was.

This book even included a directory of the communities of Lee County.

Moving closer

Plat books general start by giving you an overall view of the area, typically a county, and then move to closer and more detailed sections. This outline map of Lee County shows the major towns, railways, roads and rivers. It also shows the townships and divisions within the townships.

Image shows lee county Iowa with the various townships colored in. It covers railroads, rivers and major roads,
Image show a section of West Point Township in Lee County, Iowa. Roads and railroads are marked. Property owners and acreage are hand lettered on the map.

Each map goes into more and more detail. This section of West Point township (approximately one-sixth) shows the area around the town of West Point. You can see the fair grounds and race track near the junction of sections 4,5,8, and 9.

Many states and historical societies have collections of plat maps and other atlases. The State Library of Iowa has an extensive collection of maps digitalized, such as this collection of maps of the Des Moines River Valley. These maps are from 1836-1851.