HistoricalTownMaps Blog

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with our Boy Scout troop and get a guided tour of the Gettysburg National Military Park.  On the bus ride down, the troop watched the movie Gettysburg which featured the heroism of Col. Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine on Little Round Top and the tragedy of General George Pickett’s Charge.  About 51,000 men were were killed, mortally wounded, wounded, or missing in action in those fateful 3 days of July in 1863.  The movie gave a sense of the valor and bravery of the men on both sides but also the carnage as two world views clashed - the union vs. states rights.  Free labor vs. slavery.  So when this normally rambunctious group of 23 scouts became quiet a couple of times on the tour - it was because everyone recognized we were on hallowed ground.

What also was striking was how the Battlefield was covered in hundreds of monuments to the men who fought there.  The survivors, trying to make sense of what happened and of the sacrifices of their comrades in arms felt compelled to honor them in perpetuity.     One memorial burned into my memory is that of the 26th North Carolina:

which shows just how close the Confederates came to breaking the Union line.  One of my friends on the trip said if the 26th North Carolina had made it just 10 more paces, I might have needed a passport on my last trip to Columbus Georgia.  That gave me pause!

So what does this have to do with location based genealogy?  Everything.  I had 3 ancestors that fought in the Civil War.   Great grandfathers are taking their descendants to Omaha Beach to teach one more lesson before they pass on.  Descendants of the soldiers who fought at Gallipoli in World War I go back to Turkey just to get a sense for what their ancestors experienced and remembering how in that battle, like Gettysburg, the world changed forever.    Location is powerful and it keeps drawing us back decades and centuries later.  There are other locations which are also important touchstones - “The Wall” in Washington DC , the TWA flight 800 memorial in Long Island, or the final resting places of our family members. 

As field researchers - you will find memorials of all types sprinkled throughout the countryside — from simple gravestones to obelisks in the town square honoring those who served to elaborate memorials on the battlefield.  There is valuable information to be gleaned from them as well as the need to capture their location for future research or reference.   In the last post I covered some devices and applications for capturing and recording location information in the field.   This week I will cover an alternative approach - that of GPS-enabled photography - when a picture is worth more than a 1000 words!

I am the proud owner of a Ricoh 500SE GPS-ready digital camera that has an integrated GPS which automatically embeds GPS coordinates within the captured image or videos.  I can upload the images and videos via USB, Bluetooth, or WiFi and they can be displayed through the usual tools.  However when added to a Geographic Information System, the files can be can be organized on a virtual map with picture thumbnails hovering over the precise location at the time of capture.  There is also software that can be bundled with the camera to help geo-locate your pictures for display. I bought the camera from GeoSpatialExperts.  They distribute GPS-Photo link software that allows you to creates webpages with maps or GoogleEarth files.  I brought this camera on my trip to Southern Italy last summer and am looking forward to completing a project where I can precisely geo-locate each picture on Google Earth.

Another option is Red Hen Systems’ solution for integrating a Nikon D2Xs, D2X, and D200 cameras with a commercial handheld GPS like the Garmin Geko 301.  This novel approach is great for someone that owns the Nikon line and wants to upgrade to it for location based research.

An exciting solution that will be available in the third quarter this year is the Garmin NuviFone - which integrates a camera, a handheld GPS, and a phone.  It too will allow take pictures and embed GPS coordinates in the picture file for later geolocation in a much smaller form factor than the Nikon or Ricoh alternatives.  I would imagine that the second generation iPhone will also have similar capability in the near future.

I would strongly encourage you to look at these different field data capture platforms to see if they would add value in your field based research.  It is a very convenient way to capture information and location without having to write down anything in the field - transcription can take place later.   Whether a headstone, a battlefield monument, or your great-great-grandmother’s church thousands of miles away - it’s literally a GPS-enabled click away.  Another great strategy for making location based genealogy a reality.

Good hunting!
Bernie

The past few posts have been all about location in longitude and latitude - whether derived from conflating historical town maps and current atlases, geocoded from a physical address, or derived from a place name in the USGS GNIS.   The next 2 posts are now focused on how commercially available technology can assist the field researcher in capturing and recording critical location based information.

 One of the tools I never leave home without is my Blackberry 8703e with the Telenav Service.  I get the same turn by turn audio directions available on the Hertz Neverlost I covered earlier.  But it also provides a real time compass when walking around - and most importantly a report of your current location in latitude and longitude.    If you are in a cemetery, battlefield, state park, your ancestral home, or just off the beaten path, you can record your location right on the handheld for transcription later in your favorite genealogy database.

 On a recent business trip to Columbus Georgia a couple of weeks ago, my friend Arthur Berrill pulled out his Garmin Nuvi.  A warm British female voice directed us to our hotel.  The Nuvi line is very user friendly with a wide range of options priced from $200 to $1,000.  However the Nuvi is primarily for in-vehicle applications.  Off the beaten trail - you might want to consider Garmins handheld devices. To compare multiple vendors and 96 GPS products at low prices - you might want to consider J&R Electronics based in New York City.  I’ve been a customer for years.  (By the way - any product, service, or retailer recommendation in this blog is my opinion alone - I or HistoricalTownMaps do not have any affiliate relationships with these companies nor do we get paid for any recommendations or purchases made on their sites.)

As a field genealogist - capturing location is critical.  And it’s great to have technology to capture latitude and longitude and associate a name for later transcrption in your notebook, commercial database, or favorite genealogy database.  A great example for seamless field data capture and integration with a genealogical database is the Pocket Genealogist by Northern Hills Software.  Kevin Phillips of Northern Hills Software reports:

“Pocket Genealogist will work on any Windows Mobile based device (there are some exceptions, but pretty rare) and will work with ANY GPS unit that works with the device.  (Either built-in, direct connected via Serial port or other method or via Bluetooth). Iif you can get Windows Mobile to recognize it, then Pocket Genealogist will work with it…

Regarding how it’s used… with programs that support GPS data (Legacy Family Tree for example), Pocket Genealogist can record the information directly into the location supported by that program.  For example,
Location or Address for Legacy Family Tree.  For any genealogy program that doesn’t support GPS information, we still allow the information to be stored in a “Note” attached to an event”

Kevin was kind enough to send some samples of recording birth data for an Asa Brown Clark.  Imagine you find his headstone with birth and death information and you are transcribing it in your handheld: 

He was born in Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut:

In this example - you can either hand record the location from a GPS device:

Or capture the GPS coodinates directly from the GPS into the application - most cool:

GPS is an invaluable tool for location based genealogy.  Blackberries, Nuvis, handheld GPS, or GPS enabled Smartphones with the Pocket Genealogist sync’ed with a Legacy Family Tree database are just some of the ways to do it.  In my next post - three examples of an emerging if still unconventional method of GPS-enabled field data capture - GPS-enabled Photography!

Good hunting!

Bernie