How this site is funded

The documents on PlaceLayers are free because the archives that hold them are public. The site still costs money to run, so here is exactly how it is paid for, and what that could do to our incentives.

Viator affiliate links

PlaceLayers participates in the Viator Affiliate Program. If you book through a marked Viator link, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. These links lead to historical tours relevant to the region you are exploring. A tour listing is not a source for our historical records, and it may not include the specific place shown on a page.

Booking, payment, availability and cancellation terms are handled on Viator. Compare the itinerary and accessibility information before booking. Our map and archive research remain free to use.

What we intend to earn money from

• A paid history report for a single address ($29–$49). A compiled PDF of the documents we can find for one address, with citations. It is a research convenience, not an assessment, and it carries the same limits as everything else on this site.
• Referrals to environmental consultants. Where you ask to be put in touch with a consultant, we may be paid a referral fee. We will name the consultant and disclose the fee arrangement at the point of referral. We will not rank consultants by what they pay us.
• Genealogy affiliate links (for example Ancestry and MyHeritage). If you follow one and subscribe, we may receive a commission. Rates are not published by those programmes; we will state ours here once we are in the programmes and can quote a real figure.
• Prints of public-domain maps. Printed on demand from sheets that are free of copyright restrictions.

The conflict of interest, stated plainly

Two of those revenue lines pay us more when readers become worried. That is a real incentive to overstate what an old map means, and it is the reason this site is built the way it is: we show documents and we refuse to score properties. If you ever find a page on PlaceLayers that reads as though it is trying to frighten you into a purchase, that is a bug. Tell us and we will change it.

Disclosure practice

Under the FTC endorsement guides, a material connection has to be disclosed clearly and close to the recommendation. We put the disclosure next to the link, in the same type size as the surrounding text, not only in the footer.

What we do not do

• We do not sell your address searches, and we do not pass them to consultants as leads without you asking.
• We do not accept payment to change how a document is described.
• Advertising and affiliate placements do not change our historical source records. See our privacy and cookie information for advertising settings.