The article discusses some features of the localization (determination of geographical coordinates) of the settlements of the Tambov region (the territories of the Morshansky, Tambovsky and Kozlovsky uezds as of the early 18th century), found in the cadastral books of the first half of the 17th century. It provides an analysis of the features of the cadasters. The main difficulty of localization lies in the fact that the available cartographic sources with which the book data can be compared belong to a later period — not earlier than the last third of the 18th century. An overview of the used cartographic sources is given. The authors consider two practical approaches to the initial list of settlements for their localization — «expert» and «streaming». The effectiveness of the second approach as the first stage of the study is approved. A comparison of the original list of settlements with the list of settlements that are not amenable to stream localization in a number of parameters is carried out. An empirical ratio of the number of male souls to the number of households for each type of settlement is established. Criteria are found that affect the further chance of finding a 17th century settlement on the 18th century maps — the type of settlement itself and its size (in terms of the number of male residents). The latter does not have the expected linear relationship and is strongly related to the type of settlement. Scenarios for the development of settlements are introduced and confirmed, leading to the fact that the object of the 17th century book becomes invisible on the map of the late 18th century.