projection questions

[Jeff Portwine]

Is there an easy way to figure out what projection my shapefile was created with?   I have a map of the New England area that was created in Microsoft's Map Point, and I am more or less trying to re-create that map with mapserver.   I started with an outline of the United States and then set the extents to display the area that I wanted, but the maps look very different and i'm positive it's becuase I'm not using proper projections  (I don't expect the maps to look exactly alike of course, but the general shape should be pretty close).    I always use ogrinfo to get the extents and see projection information of shapefiles that I've downloaded but more often than not , the ogrinfo just returns: "Layer SRS WKT:  (Unknown)"   instead of telling me the projection it was created with.

I also am not sure how to go about choosing my output projection...  I've been using EPSG:4269 because as I understand it that is a midwest projection and when I first started playing with mapserver I was making maps of Michigan.    Anybody know a good source to look up what would be the best output projection for different areas of the country/world?  

As you can tell i'm really new to GIS and while I do understand the idea of projections I just don't know anything about them or how to apply them.

Thanks a lot,
Jeff
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