Alan E. Mann, A.G.

alan.familyhistory@gmail.com                                                                  Accredited Genealogist

BYU Annual Genealogy and Family History Conference                       Friday, 4 August 2006

www.alanmann.com/articles                                                                             11:00 a.m. - Noon

                                                                                                                              prepared July 2006

                                 

GeoGenealogy: 

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 http://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 20 feet or less) where the picture was taken and adds the metadata to the digital photo when it’s stored. This can later be used to inform exactly when and where the picture was taken.

 

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, Maine death index, and Louisiana slave index are the first databases they have geocoded.

 

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.

 

http://jrshelby.com/hcl/  has links to great sites showing the changing US county boundaries in maps or animations. The key to using this site is to use the table near the top for the state of interest. It also has links to other geography resources.

 

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.

 

           

           

 

©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, data retrieval, or the Internet, must be secured in advance from the copyright holder.