Google Maps – Fewer Trips To Get Lat – Longs

Google Maps is going to save me a lot of money.  I won’t have to retrace many earlier trips to ancestral homes, ancestral burial locations and the waypoints along their migratory paths.  

New features in Google Maps provides the latitude and longitude of these locations.  All I have to do it point at them and read.

In many locations, the resolution of the aerial images is so good that I can point to my ancestors exact tombstone. 

I’ll miss walking through cemeteries with grandsons just to gather the latitude and longitude information of our ancestors markers, but we’ll find another way to spend ‘together’ time.  

I’ve taken photos of ancestral tombstones and homes over the past decades.  Few of them need to be retaken.  The expense of return visits to gather latitude and longitude data can be budgeted toward other research needs.

The advantages of easily obtaining these addresses is a real benefit to genealogists who document their research with these details.

My data in Legacy is ready for these specific addresses because location fields are available for every location in your database.  Latitude and longitude fields are normally populated automatically for cities and towns, but for special locations like homes, tombstones and waypoints, the fields can be populated manually using the information on Google Maps.

If you don’t use Legacy or a similar program, you can still include the location data in their files.  All of those who later use your genealogical data will thank you for including the exact location information.  You can even use the locations to find great aunt Harriet’s grave after you forget its exact location somewhere down the road.  

Scenery changes with time.  Homes are remodeled or torn down, trees and boulders are moved.  The exact locations associated with your ancestors won’t be lost if you include the data in your database.

Enabling latitude and longitude in Google Maps is simple: 

 

1. Click on the green labs beaker.

  

 

2. Enable one or both of the LatLng tools.

 

It is just that simple.  Point at the map or satellite images in Google Maps and read the exact location beneath your arrow. 

Genealogists everywhere say “Thanks Google”.

 

Technorati Tags: Lat-Long,Google Maps,Legacy

Legacy Never Ceases to Amaze and Please

I often talk about my love of Legacy Family Tree. I’ve been a beta tester for products from Legacy and their parent company, Millennia for many years and know how input from users of Legacy has shaped the products we see today. Ken McGinnis, Dave Berdan, Geoff Rasmussen and crew listen to the beta testers and to users in general and it shows.

I own almost every genealogy package on the market, but I use Legacy as my main family history software.

Legacy 7 will be released in the next month or two and I’m really looking forward to the new features in it. If you have attended any of the larger genealogy conferences in the past few months, you’ve probably seen Geoff and Ken there making presentations about the new features and talking to folks who are visiting their booth.

Download the free version of Legacy 6 here. You can buy the deluxe version of Legacy now and upgrade to version 7 in a few months to access the new features. Legacy 6 already has so many features that it is mind blowing. I’m sure there will be an upgrade path for new buyers of Legacy Deluxe. You won’t be sorry if you start using Legacy today.

Dear Myrtle recently interviewed Geoff Rasmussen for her podcast. You can hear Geoff extol the virtues of regularly helping with FamilySearch Indexing and talking about Legacy 7 here.

Another old friend, Dick Eastman, interviewed Ken at the Saint George conference in early February 2008. You can see that interview here….