Maps!
I love old maps. And new maps. There can be so much information contained in a map. And as a very visual learner, I often need maps to help me in family history. Sometimes I simply look things up on Google or other map sites. But sometimes you also need to look at historical maps. Lucky for us, many historical maps are online, and free to view.
My father's family mostly comes from Belgium. For Christmas one year I bought and framed a map of Belgium from the time period just prior to his family immigrating (late 1800's). Not too much has changed as far as town names goes, but it's still a great reference map. I also have old maps of Fiji and India, where my husband's family comes from.
For the family history scrapbook I made my father I used local maps to show the areas his family lived. Some city or county maps even show who the land owners were and where their farms where. It is so cool to see one of your family names on a map, showing exactly where they lived.
A great way to spend family history month would be to gather old maps from the places your ancestors lived.
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