Family Search - Mapping

Last Saturday I attended the Genealogy Mapping Seminar organised by the Guild of One-Name Studies at which Judy Jones from Family Search gave a presentation on "English Jurisdictions 1851".

What is it? Since mapping is a visual tool, so is this blog. Basically it is a website enabling you to select a town in England, I have chosen Kendal, Westmorland, and show maps of the relevant jurisdictions, with links as to where the information may be found.

The map shows the boundaries of the jurisdictions selected from the Layers option below (some have contiguous boundaries).

The Layers list from which the boundaries in the above map have been selected. Note that for the map, instead of selecting the Ordnance Survey Map for the background I have chosen the more colourful Google Map which can be done elsewhere.

Selecting a jurisdiction on the map gives a bubble which shows general information about it. Including, in the case of Kendal, places within the Parish, the dates records began and non-conformist records.

As can be seen, at the top of the bubble are three tabs, and the second of which is shown below, and the Options on the right.
 

It can be seen that each tab holds a number of links from which further information may be obtained. My trials using Kendal gave me immediate access to websites and information which had taken me years to accumulate by myself, to say I'm impressed would be like saying chocolate cake is only OK, the system is brilliant!

We were advised that site is not fully operational as yet. but it is available to the public from here. Judy expressed the wish that eventually she hoped that all the new databases which Family Search are developing will be fully interlinked, so the future looks really exciting.

© Ron Ferguson 2010