Journey to the big city! Explore your ancestors' hometowns! This book guides you through American history by looking at the United States' sixteen most populous and historically influential cities, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and Baltimore. Each section features beautiful, full-color maps published at crucial points in each city's history, tracing its growth and development from its founding to the early 1900s. Use the maps to find your ancestor's home, trace your ancestor's walk to work, and identify the streets and buildings from your ancestor's everyday life. Delve further into the past with a quick-reference timeline of key dates from each city's history. You'll also discover easy genealogy research tips for finding local birth, marriage, and death records; federal and state censuses; and city directories. The book features:* More than 130 full-color historical maps of sixteen important cities, including New York, Houston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles* Timelines highlighting the most important moments in each city's history* Lists of city-specific genealogy websites and resources for records that will help you discover your family history* An index with instructions on viewing online versions of each map, allowing you to zoom in for more detail or use them with programs like Google EarthWhether your family hails from the streets of Brooklyn or the hills of San Francisco, this atlas--designed especially for genealogists--will help you better understand your city-dwelling ancestors.