A hundred years later, the palace would not appear in Song dynasty gazetteers.

I have a gazetteer in the car, and when that fails, I ask people for directions.

I’m carrying my favorite gazetteer, discovered in a book store in nearby Rochester on a previous foray: Colonel W. Laurence Gadd’s “The Great Expectations Country,” published in 1929 and long out of print.

In the days before satellite mapping or even gazetteers, he navigates to out-of-the way cemeteries using simple maps and notes filed away in a recipe box stored in the “date-cut truck.”

Ted Gartner, a Garmin spokesman, said that the new corporate owner will not only continue publishing them but will be enhancing the gazetteers in coming months and years.