Armchair Ancestry  - From The Comfort of My Recliner
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • David John's 1878 Flood Run
  • Herseys' Kingston, Ontario Circa 1880
  • Daniel Hersey 1797–1879 Tree
  • Nova Orbis Tabula
    • Nova Orbis Americas Detail
    • Nova Orbis Tethered Oxen Detail
    • Nova Orbis Wheat Harvest Detail
  • The Thomas Herse Maps
    • Chatelain's 1719 Carte Tres Curieuse de La Mer Du Sud
    • Mariage des Canadiens
    • Canadian Burial
    • America Siue India Nova
  • Thomas Herse Frontier Links Page One
  • Thomas Herse Frontier Links Page Two
  • John James Audubon
    • Bulgier Beasts
    • Smaller Critters
    • Avian Audubon
Picture

The Thomas Herse Maps

I love maps. 

We are fortunate. There are numerous sites containing historical maps of Old Canada.  In fact, the City of Kingston, Ontario has put together an amazing interactive atlas with which we can see how specific areas have  changed over time.  Another fabulous interactive map series is The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project.
John Rapkin (1815-1876) drew and engraved a series of maps for John Tallis published for the 1851 London Exhibition . These maps are clear and detailed, and of much use for finding of long lost Ontario counties and townships. Sites which make use of the Rapkin maps include Wikipedia, Google, and various Canadian genealogical sites.  Civil Engineer Justin O'Neil has contributed many well thought out and exact maps for Wikipedia.  I highly appreciate his work.

So now, without further a-gab, let us look at some of these maps.

Picture

Those of you with knowledge of Ontario Canada and Kawartha Lakes, Ontario must forgive those of us located great distances away.  It is difficult to determine the whereabouts of certain locales, current and historic.  A quick Google or Bing search does not easily show us what we need. For those of us who know only of Ontario, California here are a few self created maps showing the locales of Thomas Herse's Verulam and Thomas Albert Hersey's  Kingston, Ontario. 

West Canada - Tallis 1851
drawn and engraved by J Rapkin

with my insertions of Verulam and Kingston
Picture

Victoria County

Below is a Tallis map of old Victoria County in which you can see Verulam (which looks to be misspelled) with Bobcaygeon and Emily, the township of The Herse's in 1861.
Victoria

Verulam and Emily Townships

Accessing the Victoria map from the Canadian County Digital Atlas Website allows one to click on the individual townships of Verulam and Emily.
Picture
Emily

After investigation, we can see that the old Victoria County is roughly the area of today's Kawartha Lakes.  A few Google Maps additions  allow us to  see this shift. With the visual aid of the Rapkin Maps, Google maps, the afore mentioned O'Neill,  we can see the Victoria County, Kawartha Lakes transformation.
Picture
The above final colorful map  is a surprising current map from Ontario Rentals, even including Fenelon Falls, the township of enumerator William Powells.  It seems the old county still has a living presence in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario.
Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly