Inspired by a great article from WeRelate about using the government's GLO Records website to find information on your ancestor's land, I finally set about researching the BLM records for my great-grandfather Peter Shannon, who homesteaded in Montana in the late 1800's.
The phenomenal tool that I found was Earth Point, a website which provides an easy interface to input the township and range information and view the result in Google Earth. The tool even breaks down the view into quarter sections! This made locating the exact spot of my great-grandfather's homestead a breeze, and I got to get a satellite-view of the terrain, the roads, and an easy way to measure distances to the nearest cities.
If you haven't yet downloaded and played with Google Earth, I highly suggest it. Once you have it installed, give Earth Point a try too!
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