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Arizona Genealogy Resources

An overview of the physical and digital genealogy resources from the State of Arizona Research Library and the Arizona State Archives.

Maps

The Research Library and the Archives both have map collections. You can find more information about the Research Library's Map collection at this link.

These collections may be of significant genealogical interest:

Maricopa County Land Ownership Maps, 1903 - 1929

The Maricopa County Land Ownership plat map collection includes the years 1903, 1911, 1914, 1917, 1923, 1926 and 1929. Each map sheet depicts one township and range and shows land owners as well as railroads, canals, dams, some major roads along section lines, mountain peaks, and selected surface mining claims in the mountains north of Phoenix.

Please note that only land ownership outside the city limits is shown. Also, the maps are not searchable by individual names. Users will need a basic legal description (Section/Township/Range) in order to find the owners for that section. Keep in mind that an owner name on a parcel doesn't guarantee that that person or family lived on that parcel. Land could have been rented out, or simply held as an investment.

The earlier years cover fewer townships. The 1903 set, for example, extends only from Baseline Road north to Bell Road and from 115th Avenue east to 40th Street. By the 1920s, the map sets cover a much larger portion of Maricopa County, stretching from Gila Bend east to Chandler, and from the Phoenix Mountains south to the Gila River and a few miles beyond.

Maps for the years 1911, 1914, 1923, 1926 and 1929 are too numerous to present as a single collection. Maps for these years have been broken down into four subsets composed of North Townships/East Ranges; North Townships/West Ranges; South Townships/East Ranges; and South Townships/West Ranges.

Arizona Historic County Road Maps, 1883 - 1937

This collection of historic Arizona county maps includes maps of each Arizona county, dating from the late 1880s to 1937. Most of the late 1880s to early 1920s maps were produced by the County Engineer or County Surveyor and published by the county Board of Supervisors. Some of the maps appear to be commercially published and a few have no publication information.

Besides roads and trails, these late 19th - early 20th century maps generally show the extent of public land surveys, railroads and a variety of other cultural features. Depending on the county, the maps may show mines and associated mining activities, ranches and agricultural features, irrigation features such as canals and wells, or include annotations showing telephone/telegraph lines.

In 1937, the Arizona State Highway Department published a series of detailed county road maps under the title "General Highway and Transportation Map Arizona." Each county map consists of multiple sheets scaled at 1:126,000, or approximately two miles per inch. The maps depict several types of roads, bridges and railroad crossings and airfields. They also depict a wide variety of buildings, such as farm houses, dwellings, stores, hotels and churches, to name only a few. Finally, the set includes inset maps for selected small towns and settlements in Arizona.

Due to the large size, the following county maps were scanned in two or more sections: Apache (1918), Pima (1922), Pinal (1908), Yavapai (1920) and Yuma (1923). This selection of historic county road maps represents a very small portion of the maps held by the Arizona State Archives.

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