The True Value of Mapping for Family Historians

The latest free software to add “interactive mapping” has been released by MyHeritage. They join a large number of data and software suppliers including Ancestry and Genes Reunited that are announcing their added mapping functionality for their software and online services. In all cases with these companies they have not, unfortunately, understood or not chosen to include the real benefit of mapping, the immensely powerful use of location as a gateway for the discovery and dissemination of information. These companies simply create static pictures of maps with pins in them and the “interactive functionality” of linking these pins with a line to show connections between points by family, event and date. While this creates are relatively informative picture of a family’s history this completely ignores the huge benefits associated with true Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

It is said that approximately 80% of all information has a locational element. When it comes to family history this rises to 100%. Ask yourself the question “what single fact connects every single event in every single family tree everywhere in the world?” Answer, every event took place somewhere. Having a “constant” enables commercial data suppliers and individuals searching for and/or adding data to attach information from any number of diverse sources to the particular location to which it refers. This can be cemetery data, battle records, birth, marriage, work, census, parish, county, journey, disembarkation, hospitalisation, incarceration (mental hospital and prison), disaster and criminal records. Any record, in fact, that has a locational element.

Now comes the interesting part and the area that appears to be ignored by all the current software developers. Once you have attached that information to the map, no matter how diverse or specialised the information, those looking at that map can find the information. It doesn’t stop there. These pieces of information are no longer separate stand alone bits of data, they are now “part of the landscape.” People can see where they took place and by definition they can begin to understand the context of these events. How close is the event to the church, bridge, valley, mine, factory, road connection, railway, gold rush trail or county, parish, wapentake, townland and hundreds boundary?  “Now I understand why I can’t find the information about my family in these parish records. I was looking in the wrong place. Now I can see they lived in the parish but the nearest parish church was in the neighbouring parish on this side of the river.”

Imagine looking at a small village on the “shared map” and all the data from Census, Parish, factory employment, Directory and all the other weird and wonderful data sources about that location are all available (and relevant) and there for you to see. What about all the individuals with their personal stories about their family and friends. What about the great grandfather who fought in the First World War and was injured at Ypres on October 29th 1914. Put it on the map. Put it on a map that everyone can see.

Using the enhanced search functionality offered by GIS creates an environment for discovery. Everybody knows that maps impart huge amounts of information and create an understanding of topography. Using GIS for family history creates a map that enables an understanding of “human topography” or the geography of social history.

So GIS gives us the ability to search by name, event type, date range and location. It also enables searches “from” that location. Location refines searches to remove unnecessary and irrelevant information but above all, by attaching information to a web based map and enabling everyone to look at that map, it creates the perfect environment for collaboration and networking.

This collaboration and networking is not just about linking with potential relatives, it is about linking with others whose family has had shared experiences. Great grandfathers who were in the same battalion, troop or platoon, who faced the same onslaught, who fought in the civil wars, who were on the same ship coming over from Ireland, lived in the same street in New York when they first arrived, who recovered in the same hospital, were treated by the same nurse, who worked in the same factory, who were involved in the same strike, who survived in the same poor house, were married in the same church,  who was buried in the same cemetery. All the people who have attached this information to the map may not share the same blood with you, but they do have a shared history and may be able to help you find out more to add context to your investigations. Their “local knowledge” may be able to help with your research.

By enabling those looking at the “shared” map to contact one another, in a secure environment, you create the ultimate family history network.

Where can you find this service? There is only one website that has grasped the GIS potential and it is www.ancestralatlas.com.

Ancestral Atlas, the location based social networking site for dead people!

About the Author

Ancestral Atlas is a Web 2.0 company dedicated to providing online genealogy mapping services.

Ireland September 2009

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