Can I obtain a copyright of a copy of an old document?

Recent news releases in the genealogical community highlight additions
to more huge online databases of historic images, including private
documents such as journals, wills, maps and other such items. Many of
these images are put online by companies trying to charge a fee for some
aspect of either searching or reproducing the documents. This raises a
more than academic question, can anyone obtain copyright protection by
virtue of scanning an old documents and putting it into an online
database? The answer involves more than a simple yes or no.

Let's say I purchase or find a paper copy of an 1887 state map of
Arizona Territory. Without going into a long analysis, it is pretty easy
to ascertain that there is no copyright protection for a document this
old for the map's original publisher or cartographer. In other words, a
document that old is now considered to be in the public domain and not
protected by any present U.S. copyright law from any type of use or
reproduction. So now the question becomes, is there anything I can do to
the map to obtain a copyright? The answer is maybe.

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