Genealogists have always been taught to record sources of information.
We not only record the name of the book or other source of genealogy information,
but we also record the location of the building (repository) where we found
it. Typically we record the building’s name, street address, city, and
state.
With today’s technology, shouldn’t we also be recording
the geographic coordinates? With GPS receivers or with the plethora of high-quality
on-line maps, it is now easy to find the exact latitude and longitude of any
address. Unlike street names, the longitude and latitude will never change.
I have already talked about cemeteries, but shouldn’t we
be recording the exact latitude and longitudes of those cemeteries into our
genealogy databases? How about the location of great-great-grandfather’s
farm? I believe the latitude and longitude of that farm would be a valuable
entry in your database so that future genealogists who have access to your data
can find that farm’s location, even if it has since become covered with
weeds or perhaps a high-rise apartment building. In short, I think we should
record the geographic coordinates of every location in our genealogy databases.
You can enter the latitude and longitude of any location as a
text note into most any modern genealogy program. However, several genealogy
programs have specific database fields for these coordinates. The programs that
I know can support this are The Master Genealogist, Legacy, and Family Origins.
There may be others as well.
If you own a GPS receiver, the next time you visit an ancestral
site of any sort, you should record its geographic coordinates into your database.
You can also find similar information by consulting topographic maps.
Dick Eastman Online
