Alan E. Mann, A.G.
alan.familyhistory@gmail.com Accredited
Genealogist
www.alanmann.com/articles prepared October 2006
GeoGenealogy:
Online Geography for Genealogists
Geography can be a genealogist’s best friend. Understanding the
geography leads to understanding jurisdictions, which helps locate records. It
also can assist or suggest a direction for research. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genmaps/
and http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=133:1:1966716235342276351
are great examples of geography resources online. As good as they are, they are
merely great reference tools where you can look up the desired information.
Another good tool, is the England Jurisdiction project from the Family History
Library. It has tremendously valuable data, but is still just data. An early
application that attempts to make this data more useable can be seen at www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHL/frameset_
library.asp?PAGE=english_probate_jurisdictions.asp. As good as this is, we
need to apply some imagination to think of what else could be done with this
data.
The future of such a project might be that I could enter a place name, a
family name, and a rough time period. The program would then identify the
place, find records from that place or other places nearby, search those
records for the name I supplied, and return the information from the records.
This would be possible if the location data were geocoded and the records
themselves were indexed (both of which are do-able now…)
This session will focus on new ways of providing useful geographic
information over the web through geocoding, geotagging, and mashups.
GeoCoding
A geocode is a geographical code to identify a point or area at the
surface of the earth. (Courtesy of Wikipedia). The code systems can be
described by:
* how the area is coded
(number, letter, mixture of both, other)
* which part of the earth is
covered (whole earth, land, water, a continent, a country)
* what kind of area or
location is coded (country, county, airport, railstation, city, ...)
* whether an area or a point
is coded
* time for which the code is
valid
Geocoding is the process of assigning geographic identifiers (e.g.,
codes or geographic coordinates expressed as latitude-longitude) to map
features and other data records, such as street addresses. You can also geocode
media, for example where a picture was taken, IP Addresses, and anything that
has a geographic component. With geographic coordinates, the features can then
be mapped and entered into Geographic Information Systems. (Courtesy of
Wikipedia). Geocoding allows for each piece of data so coded to
be tied to a specific spot on the earth. That spot can then later be identified
by GPS device, plotted on a map, or used to determine distances between two
coded spots.
A geocoder is a piece of software or a (web) service that helps in this
process.
Geocodes
can be added to photographs, digitized documents, and a variety of things in
electronic format. The Geocode becomes a type of metadata, which can be
imbedded within the electronic file itself. There are digital cameras which
come equipped with a GPS device. The GPS uses satellites to determine the
specific spot (within
GeoTagging
GeoTagging
is the process of associating the geographic location with an item, such as a
photo, certificate, or other digital record. It remains to be seen if the
concept of community or volunteer geotagging can help the genealogical
community. One such project is called GeoTagThings at www.geotagthings.com. This
concept
has a lot of potential to benefit genealogists.
GeoTagging
opens possibilities of taking data that has been tagged (or marked up) with geographic locations and
doing things with it automatically, based on the location represented by that
tag. For example, if a birth record gives a location and the birth record has
been geotagged with the location, it becomes possible to represent the birth
record on a map. This is what makes geographic mashups possible.
Mashups
A
mashup (web application hybrid) is a website or web application that combines
content from more than one source (courtesy Wikipedia). Thus one can take a
geotagged genealogical record database in one source (or on one website), and
mash it up with maps on a web site which has nothing to do with the
genealogical database. For example, Zillow is a popular mashup which pulls
information from sites about real estate sales, and presents that information
on a map from a different site. The result is a map which shows individual
homes with their value. It has nothing to do with family history, but it
illustrates the idea – see www.zillow.com.
Provo
Labs is an exciting new company in the genealogy community. Their first major
offering is WorldVitalRecords.com. At this site, you can search data that has
been tagged with geographic locations. This mashes
up with Yahoo! maps to display markers on a map represented by the data.
You search the database, get results, click on a result of interest, and get a
map of the area showing the area where the event took place. Social Security
Death Index,
The Foundation for
Online Genealogy is another new company in the genealogy community. Their first
product is WeRelate.org, a cooperative
site that seeks to enhance good tools through individual participation in the
improvement process. At this site, you can search names, places, or sources and
then map them through a Google maps mashup.
The mapping portion is only visible when doing a sources search at www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:SearchSources.
They have drawn information from a variety of sources, including the Family
History Library Catalog. Try a source search for a state or country and enter a
record type into the keywords field. Once you’ve found a record for a place,
you can edit the results to add additional valuable information, which will
then be available to future visitors to the WeRelate site. It’s an interesting
idea, with a lot of potential for the future.
The US GeoGen Project® (www.geogen.org)
is a national project designed to combine the hobbies of genealogy and
electronic orienteering. Genealogical research often involves geographical
research or visualization, even looking for cemeteries and other sites from
your ancestors’ lives. Electronic orienteering is the use of global positioning
devices (GPS) and maps to find things that may otherwise be difficult to find. The
specific goal of the US GeoGen project is to create a national network of
county oriented pages listing locations of interest to the genealogist along
with their geographical coordinates, so that all researchers can easily find
the locations. Their list of place types include: Cemetery, ghost town,
monument, mine, homestead, or historical Post Office. You type in the name of a
place in the box marked waypoint,
pick the state and type of place, click search then wait for a response. You
get back a list of places by that name, with the ability to see a current map
of the place in Google Maps.
www.genooglegy.com (a play on
the combination of Genealogy and Google) is not yet available, but is an
anticipated release from BYU. The basic idea is to take a GEDCOM, extract all
places mentioned in the GEDCOM, and then to map those places on a Google map.
This would help a user to see geographic relationships between their ancestors
and might also point out some inconsistencies or questionable locations.
GenMapUK (www.archersoftware.co.uk/genmap01.htm)
is a software product rather than a web site, but does some useful things with
place data—either in a GEDCOM file or a pre-formated data file from a
genealogical source, like the IGI. It can do surname distributions, event maps,
and a variety of other visualization tools. Take a look at their web site for
more information. It is probably only a matter of time before someone offers
this same service on the web.
www.shawngo.com/gmaps/states.php
- this is a new site that attempts to show things on a map. So far, I haven’t
been too impressed by it—except for the fishing sites map. I mention it here as
an example – and who knows, it may become more useful in the future.
Goldbug’s SiteFinder (www.goldbug.com/map/sitefinder.html)
asks you to input a place name. It then locates the place and plots it on
Google Maps in a basic mashup. Goldbug is well known for Animap Plus, a
software program which animates the changing boundaries for each county of the
48 states from colonial times to the present. For an example of what an Animap
animation looks like, check out www.tngenweb.org/maps/county-ani/tn-maps/tn-cf.html.
A list of other states’ AniMap animations available online is found at http://genealogyinc.com/map_county.html.
http://jrshelby.com/hcl/ has links to great sites showing the changing
National Gravesite Locator - http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1
helps to locate veteran gravesites, showing maps of the cemetery in which they
are buried.
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©Copyright 2006 by Alan E. Mann. All rights reserved. Written permission
to reproduce all or part of this syllabus material in any format, including photocopying,
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