More than any other group, GC readers probably appreciate the way computers have improved the genealogical process. It is almost a foregone conclusion nowadays that if you are serious about genealogy, you will use a computer to save, organize, print, transmit, and collect your information.

Even the collection process itself has been transformed. Can you imagine going back to the good old days when a trip had to be made to physically examine a census or marriage record, or any one of a myriad other pieces of information that we like to cobble together to represent lives long gone?

Who among us is not glad for the Web and all that is available at Ancestry.com, RootsWeb, USGenWeb, and the many other online treasures? We can often learn as much in a few hours of online browsing as we once learned in weeks and months of travel and digging.

However, the genealogical process still demands that we go “on-site” rather than online. This may be the only way we can get that crucial grave marker information, or see the homestead or where the battle took place, or actually hold the marriage certificate Great-great-grandfather signed. In short, although the computer and the Internet have combined to make genealogy much less physically demanding, they have not replaced the need for fieldwork—and they probably never will.

But even when we resort to fieldwork, it does not follow that we must leave technology behind. In the article “Traveling with GPS Navigation” (GC 22.4), Beau Sharbrough wrote about how we can use technology to cut down on wasted time we spend wandering around almost at our destination, but not quite there. He urges the use of a GPS device to get you from where you are (Point A) to exactly where you want to be (Point B) without all the missed turns and dead ends and wandering the back roads and other non-productive uses of your time. If you missed his article, I highly recommend that you read it. What I want to add is how you might better define where Point B is.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has created an extremely useful tool for locating genealogical sites in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). This extensive database has, according to its website, “almost 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the United States.” Each of these features is classified into one of about 64 types including such things as airport, cemetery, church, dam, lake, populated place, post office, or valley.

Another extremely useful attribute of the GNIS is that these features are not only those that currently exist but seem to include many that long ago ceased to be. Since I belong to several online genealogy lists, I often see the question “Does anyone have any idea where so-and-so site was in X County?” Very often I have been able to use GNIS to supply the exact location for the sought-after site, even when it was no longer there.

So how do you go about using GNIS? And when might it serve as a very useful tool? To answer both of these questions, let's take a look at one of Sharbrough's examples.

In his article, he pointed out that major geographical sites, such as a large cemetery in a large city, pose no real problem as it will usually show up on any detailed map of the area. It is when you are looking for an obscure site that you run into trouble. It is then, according to Sharbrough, that “you have to get as close as you can, based on whatever directions you can find.”

In this example, he is looking for a Pine Grove cemetery in east Texas. From USGenWeb he found that it was “located at the site of an early Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It is about eleven miles east of Henderson on a dirt road that runs off Farm Road 2867.” From this, and from his “dad's fading memory,” Sharbrough was able to draw a map from Henderson, Texas, to just east of Pine Hill, but says that his “chances of driving straight to the cemetery with no more information than this are less than 100 percent.” Perhaps GNIS can improve Sharbrough's chances.

Upon visiting the GNIS website, we choose the “United States and Territories” option. This permits us to enter the feature name and choose State or Territory, and Feature Type. “Send Query” results in the information shown in table 1.

In order to decide which Pine Grove might be the one we're seeking, we need to know what county we are looking in. Not being familiar with east Texas, I return to the GNIS search screen and enter a query for Henderson, Texas, as a populated place. This tells me that it is in Rusk County. Since the location of the cemetery in Rusk County is totally unknown, it appears that our Pine Grove cemetery query has come to a dead end. Clicking on the “Pine Grove Cemetery” entry for Rusk County (shown in Table 1) adds no new information.

However, in the USGenWeb directions, it says that the cemetery was at the site of an early church. So perhaps we should check for Pine Grove churches in Rusk County. (In general, this is a good idea since church names and cemetery names are often synonymous.) Going back to the entry screen once more, we now use a new query of Feature Name, State or Territory, Feature Type, and for the county, County Name.

Note that GNIS offers the option of using a wildcard for the Feature Name. Using a wildcard in this search would find all churches in Rusk County, Texas, rather than one named Pine Grove. This can be very helpful when the specific name of a site is unknown.

You may also choose to search for a Variant Name of a site. Whereas the Feature Name is the official name of a given site, the site may have other unofficial names that may be recorded as Variant Names in the GNIS details. This is also a potentially useful feature.

The result of this query is shown in table 2.

Double-clicking on one of the “Pine Grove Church” entries enlarges that table entry and gives the following additional options.

Display FIPS55 Place Code Note: Not all place codes are available through this site. To search the FIPS55 database or download FIPS55 files, go to the FIPS55 site.

This is defined at the FIPS55 site as: “the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), which contains codes for named populated places, primary county divisions, and other locational entities of the United States and areas under the jurisdiction of the United States. FIPS55 data maintenance is the responsibility of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Under the authority of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the USGS is disseminating the data, and is the only Federal agency authorized by NIST to do so.”

There is a possibility that we might gain additional information about the site in question from the FIPS55 database. Unfortunately, none of the results has a FIPS55 code assigned to it.

View USGS Digital Raster Graphic (DRG) covering this feature from TerraServer. A DRG is a digitized version of a USGS topographic map. Visit the USGS Digital Backyard for more information.

As stated, this shows a topographic map containing the site, along with some specific distance parameters. The topographic map for the third entry in Table 2 is shown in figure 1.

Note that this area is five kilometers west of Pinehill and is also in the vicinity of Farm Road 2867. Both of these facts are very consistent with the map drawn by Sharbrough. To examine this area closer, choose the “Print” option at the top of the screen (provides a larger picture) and then choose the “Show Grid Lines.” Those choices result in figure 2.

On this image we can actually use the coordinates given in Table 2 to locate the site. Note that as per the USGenWeb directions, it seems to be located “on a dirt road that runs off Farm Road 2867.” Examination of the maps and data of the other two entries in Table 2 shows that neither matches the USGenWeb entry so closely. So, if Sharbrough uses one of his recommended GPS devices to go to 32° 06' 08" N and 094° 39' 13" W, I feel sure he will find the desired Pine Grove cemetery.

The other options available are:
View USGS Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle (DOQ) covering this feature from TerraServer. A DOQ is a black and white, aerial photographic image map. Note that images are not available for all locations. Visit the USGS Digital Backyard for more information.

This option might be useful in a more urban environment or at least in one which was more familiar. In the example illustrated it had nothing to add.

Show Feature Location using maps produced from the U.S. Census Bureau's Tiger Map Server.

While this option certainly sounds useful, in reality its scale offers limited usability. In the illustrated example it simply locates the site in east Texas. This option could serve a purpose when the geographical location of the topological map was unknown and could not easily be determined.

Find the Watershed using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's site. This is probably the least useful option for genealogical purposes.

As this example has shown, GNIS can be a very powerful tool to help precisely locate a genealogical site, even with a relative paucity of information. Using the information gained, along with a GPS direction device, can save you both hours of frustrating wanderings and keep your disposition cool, calm, and collected.

John Mountain has been in the computer field for more than 40 years, going back to the first-generation IBM 650. He has served as a top executive in large information technology organizations in both the government and private industry. He recently retired and now acts as a consultant to defense industry companies. He holds a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Alabama–Huntsville and an M.S. in information and computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He can be reached at jm2222@aol.com.

Return to the July-September 2003 Genealogical Computing Table of Contents.