DON'S FREEWARE CORNER -- SEP 2014
ROOTSMAPPER: A FAMILY TREE CERTIFIED PROGRAM
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DON'S FREEWARE CORNER 2014-09
ROOTSMAPPER: A FAMILY TREE CERTIFIED PROGRAM
©2014 Donald R. Snow
These Freeware Corner notes are published in TAGGology, our Utah
Valley Technology and Genealogy Group (UVTAGG) monthly
newsletter, and are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
where there may be updates, corrections, or additions.
ROOTSMAPPER
OVERVIEW
This month we discuss ROOTSMAPPER, an online program at https://rootsmapper.com/ ,
that uses data for your ancestors on FamilySearch Family Tree to
draw interactive Google maps of where they were born. It
is Family Tree Certified, which means that it has been approved
by FamilySearch to work with Family Tree data. See https://familysearch.org/products/
for the list of currently Certified FamilySearch products.
Here is a quote from the ROOTSMAPPER link on that page, https://familysearch.org/products/rootsmapper
. There is also more information about the program there.
"RootsMapper allows you to easily visualize the migration
patterns of your ancestors. It utilizes the data that
already exists in your FamilySearch Family Tree to plot your
ancestors onto an interactive map. Discover your family's
heritage with RootsMapper. It's easy to get started.
Just visit our website and login with your FamilySearch
credentials and a basic map will automatically generate.
From there you can explore additional options and plot multiple
additional generations in seconds."
USING ROOTSMAPPER
To use it go to their website https://rootsmapper.com/
, log in with your LDS or FamilySearch account, and it generates
a 3-generation interactive Google map of the birth locations of
you, your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.
Three generation in ROOTSMAPPER means: 0 = you, 1 = your
parents, 2 = your grandparents, and 3 = your
great-grandparents. The circle marked 0 on the map
generated shows where you were born, the circles marked 1 where
your parents were born, etc. It only uses birth
information, not migration data, so a line crossing the ocean
shows immigration since the parent was born abroad and the child
born here. The default is 3 generations, but can be
changed for up to 10 generations. To change the root
person highlight the PID in the upper left corner and enter the
new PID or else go to the end of one of the lines, click on the
circle, and click on the icon to Show This Person's
Parents. Maps starting from anyone other than yourself,
must start from a deceased person, unless you entered that data
yourself, since your FamilySearch account doesn't have access to
birth information for living people other than you due to
privacy laws. Lines on the maps are color-coded with blue
lines for ancestors of the root person's father and pink lines
for the root person's mother. Note that these colors don't
change for other generations, that is a blue line anywhere is a
line pertaining to ancestors of your father and a pink line
anywhere is a line pertaining to ancestors of your mother.
The map can be moved by holding down the left click key and
moving the mouse. The map can be zoomed in or out by
holding down the Control key and rolling the mouse wheel.
Hovering the cursor over a circle shows the name, birth, and
death years of that person. Clicking on a circle opens a
card with the name, PID (Personal Identifier in Family Tree),
and birth and death information with several options of going to
their personal card on Family Tree, setting that person as the
Root Person, etc. The person cards for people at the ends
of the lines on the map have an icon to extend that line further
by selecting the number of generations you want. Clicking
on Satellite (upper right corner of the map) shows a satellite
view, rather than the map view. When on the map view,
clicking on Terrain toggles the names of the physical features
of the map on and off and, when on the Satellite view, it
toggles the terrain features on and off. If you plot many
generations, you will probably need to zoom in on the map, since
there will be many circles and lines.
OPTIONS
The Options box in the upper left corner contains the following:
Map Options -- has buttons to toggle
lines and pins on and off; Traceback which makes the line black
from whoever you click on down to the root person; and
Isolate, with Traceback turned on, which toggles all the other
lines on and off so you can see just the one black path from the
person down to the root person.
Pedigree Chart -- shows the root person
and parents; clicking on a parent redraws the map with that
person as the root person.
Country Statistics -- shows how many
people were born in each country for the number of generations
you have plotted.
Root Person and their PID -- can change
the PID here to generate the map for another person
Besides seeing migration patterns you may be able to see
problems in your data on Family Tree. For example, on one
of my lines the abbreviated place MA plotted somewhere in Brazil
and I discovered that I needed to spell out Massachusetts for
that person in
Family Tree to have it plot correctly.
Helps for RootsMapper are at http://blog.rootsmapper.com
, http://blog.rootsmapper.com/p/faq.html
, and http://ldsmediatalk.com/2013/10/16/rootsmapper-shows-ancestor-migrations/
.
CONCLUSIONS
You can use ROOTSMAPPER to generate various maps of your
ancestors and then do screenshots of the maps to use for
articles, demonstrations, or slideshows. For family
gatherings you map slideshows of maps of each of your
grandparents, or a series of maps going back more and more
generations, etc. It would be easy for people to interpret
and see where your ancestors are from. ROOTSMAPPER is a
very helpful program that gives migration information at a
glance.
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