www.itowler.com - Ian's Home on the web

As I mentioned in my last post I purchased a digital copy of the 1876 Baskin and Forster Indiana State Atlas.  The atlas covers Indiana, and has maps of the counties and Cities that were in the state at the time.  In addition to the maps that are specific to the state, there are some maps that are of general interest.  These general interest maps include a world map, a railroad map etc.

One of the general interest maps that I found interesting was a map of the German Population living in the United States.  The map was based of the 1870 US census, but none the less it gives you a good idea about where people of German descent tended to gather.  The map to the left is a view of the entire United States, with German Population's marked in red (click on it to see it larger).  The darker the red the higher the concentration of German's.  As you can see the German population stayed in a pretty tight area, and did not really seem to venture south.  Of note are some of the "Big" German population centers, New Jersey, New York City, Erie PA, Buffalo NY, Chicago, Cincinnatti. 

Last week I talked about VINE, a research tool for those doing research in Indiana. In the post I mentioned that I had found several Towler Obituaries and a few Hoffman’s. Using the information that I gathered in VINE, I sent away for copies of each of the obituaries. One of the Obituaries that I sent for was the Obit of Mrs. Mary Hoffman.