American Place Names of Long Ago Genealogy Book

Description

American  Place Names of Long Ago
A Republication of the Index to Cram's "Unrivaled Atlas of the  World," as Based on the Census of 1890. Assembled and with an Introduction by  Gilbert S. Bahn, Ph.D.
Hardbound volume totaling
347
pages. Book is in excellent condition. Per The Publisher;
George Cram's
Unrivaled Atlas  of the World
contains an index of over 100,000 place names of "every  county, city, town, village, and post-office in the United States [showing] the  population of the same according to the Census of 1890." This index is of  critical importance to the genealogist, for most genealogical research takes  place on the county level, and in Cram's index all 100,000 places--large and  small--are tied to a specific county. Furthermore, when you consider how many  nineteenth-century place names have changed or disappeared in the intervening  years, and that 45 percent of the places listed in this index were too small or  obscure to have their population counts listed by the census taker, the  importance of such a work is self-evident. Indeed, there may be no official  record of many of these places, and Cram's index may be the only tool to guide  you from an obscure location to the correct county courthouse.
Cram had the benefit of working with the 1890 census before it  was destroyed. According to Gilbert Bahn, census enumerators listed all place  names on their tabulation sheets, even when the population counts were too small  to warrant recording. Thus, Cram was able to compile an extremely detailed list  of place names--and an accurate list, at that, because the names were recorded  by local enumerators and automatically tied in to their respective counties! It  is fair to say that the compilation of such a list would have been impossible  without the 1890 census.
The original index as published in the 1898 edition of Cram's
Unrivaled  Atlas
occupied 106 pages, each with six columns. For purposes of this  reprint edition, the six columns have been rearranged into three; otherwise  there has been no change to the original text. Each entry, in alphabetical order  within states, gives the place name, the county in which the place is located,  and the population of the place at the time of the census. State capitals and  large cities are in caps, county seats are in boldface, post offices are in  roman type, and places that are not post offices are rendered in italics. Places  that were too small for a population count are indicated by an X.
This index is an unexpectedly rich source of information, and  thanks to Dr. Bahn we are now able to place it before an appreciative audience.