Looking for census district locations within Surry County, North Carolina

Question

You can see from the referenced profile that over several decades, the census location was various districts - Bundy's, Capt. Davis, Eldora and Siloam within Surry County, North Carolina. I'd like to locate where those were. I've had no luck finding a map or other reference so far.

Comments

Possibly the map you mention may be here.  Mapsofus org has many maps for specific states and links to other sites with state related maps.  The interactive map on the formation of counties for North Carolina is rather neat.

https://www.mapofus.org/northcarolina/

A link found on the above page might have your map or another of equal use.

http://www.usgwarchives.net/maps/northcarolina/index.html

Also, if the map is an image of an original map from the mid 1800's and has no updates to it made past 1926, it is in the public domain and can used on WikiTree.  Citing the who, where and how you got it should be sufficient for its source.  This is very much like saying "Email with information from So and So's Granddaughter with details on their life."  If the bottom of the map has the printer's name and location, add that too.

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The book that the map came from is copyrighted in the 1980s, and it looks like a hand-drawing, with a caption to the effect "approximate district locations." You probably know better than me, but if I were to use it, I think I'd have to judge if it's fair use or not. Plus, I was only sent one page from the book, so I'm still tracking how to properly give credit.

Regarding the other sites, I've spent a great deal of time looking through the various repositories of North Carolina maps, and I have not found a map that gives the districts I want to discover. There is at least one remaining, Captain Davis District. But I don't know what I don't know.

What I have learned is that some district names changed, and some district boundaries changed. If I want a rough approximation of where the districts were in 1820, 1830, etc, I can look at the current townships - when I overlay a township map from the current government web page with the hand-drawn 1850 map, there's a lot of overlap. I've more or less located where Michael Wall (referenced in the question) must have been, and it's probably a location that's consistent with four different district names, depending on which census year you look him up in. I've added this information to his profile in research notes.

Answer 1

I did a google search and found this site, which has some interesting links. Seems actual historical information on districts is sparse. Though you could make your inquiry at the County seat or land board for direction. Could be archival info that they hold or perhaps the county museum. 

https://www.ncpedia.org/geography/surry

Comments

I didn't find any info about the districts on that web page, which I was aware of from my own duckduckgo searching, so I'm still at square one. I'll figure out how to contact the County seat or land board as you suggest. It seems like few people know anything about this question. That surprises me.

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I have spent a lot of time learning about the historical districts in Ontario, Canada. The province has gone through several name and boundary changes and an amazing amount of district name changes and place name changes. My eyes glaze over just at the thought of how complex Ontario is lol!  I totally get the importance of it. It might appear that people have moved when in fact all that happened is the district changed (name or boundaries or both) !  I was surprised that North Carolina had so little online on that topic! Boundaries can be overseen by different government bodies, depending on the purpose. Electoral boundaries, tax boundaries, Towns, Townships, District boundaries etc. But once you figure out what authority you need to talk to then it should get easier.  If they don't have it chances are they can direct you to the information.  Also check with the local or state genealogical society's, they would either be able to give you that info or direct you to where you can learn it. Good Luck!

Answer 2

Update: Lorraine Nagle suggested contacting County seat land board. I looked up the government web site and found a register of deeds department, and they replied to my email. Someone from that response sent me a copy of a map from the front of a book about the 1850 census of Surry County. It shows the 1850 district approximate locations. This is just what I was looking for, as far as 1850 goes. I don't have proper attribution or copyright info for that map, so I'm not yet posting it anywhere. Also, I'm still looking for other years. In particular, Capt. Davis District wasn't even on the 1850 map from that book.