Import your Existing Tree into Google Earth

To save you the trouble of locating and mapping every event for every individual there is a program that will do it for you.

Map My Ancestors will import a GEDCOM file and will locate all the places mentioned in it before producing a KML/KMZ file that can be opened by Google Earth or Google Maps.

Download a 30 day trial of Map My Ancestors from http://www.familytreeassistant.com/

Download Google Earth from http://earth.google.com/

Create a personal map at http://maps.google.com/ and select "My Maps".

Mapping your Family Tree

Mapping your family tree has never been easier now we have freely available mapping tools such as Google Maps or Google Earth. Creating a map using the "My Maps" facility of Google Maps will take just minutes and, after Google has indexed your map, the places in your map will be searchable by anyone else in the world.

The searches are not just text searches either - if I have a place in my tree located in Bermondsey in London and someone is searching for places in Southwark, London then my place will still show up since Google Maps know the place is nearby.



View Larger Map

The use of the Google "My Maps" feature has enormous potential - enabling the locating of individuals from the trees of other researchers by geographic area.

Here's an example -
go to http://maps.google.com and search for the string "Freeschool Street, London".

No matches?

That's because Freeschool street no longer exists. Now click on the "Show Search Options" link and select "User-created content". Search again and now you see a whole bunch of my relatives appear on Tooley Street - part of which was one called "Freeschool Street".

Now search on "Skinner residence bermondsey" (again search "User-created content") and all my Skinner relatives in the Bermondsey area show up. Note that many of the addresses in my tree don't actually mention the word "Bermondsey" at all - Google maps figures out they are in the same area and shows them automatically.