Map of the Week – Leeuwarden Ward C, 1843

This week, we are looking at a ward map for Leeuwarden. The map shows buildings in ward C in 1843, with their house numbers.

In many places in the nineteenth century, houses were indicated by their ward letters and house numbers. One ward would consist of several streets, so only one street in the ward would have a house number 1, for example. This makes it very hard to translate old addresses to modern addresses. See tips to find the address.

Reseachers with ancestors in Leeuwarden in the nineteenth century are lucky, since Leeuwarden created ward maps in 1843 and 1876 that show the locations of each house. The map below shows the location of houses nos. 1-300 in ward C in 1843. We can see that the ward also included the House of Corrections. You can find the ward maps of Leeuwarden at the Historisch Centrum Leeuwarden. Most other municipalities did not have such maps, though it is worth checking their online map collections to see if you can find them.

Leeuwarden, map of ward C, houses 1-300, 1843. Credits: Historisch Centrum Leeuwarden (public domain)