Project Places – Geocoding My Past

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]roject Places is an ongoing series. My personal goal is to complete this over the next year. I am both excited and hesitant to undertake the task. Geocoding ones past can be difficult.

Geocoding is more difficult if you were using either older generations of software or online repositories which lack places to list GPS Latitude and Longitude. Let’s face it many of us started before technology was that advanced, there was no Google Maps, Find a Grave or similar services. Now researchers face the fact that now we need to catch up to the technology.

I am one of those researchers and am overwhelmed. I think it would still feel vast even if Family Tree Maker did not crash on me often or stop for minutes at a time after changing a single person. To make this project more practical I am dividing it up into smaller more attainable goals. I am giving my self permission to change the order of them or add to them as needed. It is important to me to have standardized locations in keeping with GPS (Genealogical Proof Standards). I find it cute that I refer to GPS in an article about geolocations and the FTM 2014 Geo-Location Data Base.

My Geocoding Obstacles

Places which no longer exist. My FTM crashing. It will be Mind Numbing. Previously imported gedcoms listing Unknown as a place, Or in the place (such as “I think North Carolina or Tennessee”) and Submitted as a place.

My Tools

Music from the 80’s turned up to eleven. Google. Coffee. Old Maps. Prayer. Permission to give myself breaks as needed. FTM ability to Compress files.

My Places Steps to Success

1. Committing myself to posting the project here updating this topic as I  progress.
2. Review the FTM tutorial on YouTube.
3. Remove instances of Unknown, Not known and similar entries where places should be.
4. Do all changes that can be done with bulk changes.
5. Manually do the individual corrections that I personally know.
6. Research remaining places online.
7. Add coordinates of where I got married and other Personal First Hand Knowledge.
8. Use Find A Grave and Billion Graves for individuals lacking geolocations for burial sites.
9. Review data after completing the prior steps and reassess or call it up to GPS.

Okay, number eight in the list is still up in the air and maybe my next theme. I will give updates my progress. I hope these changes will make it easier for family and future genealogists!