Tracking family names and migration patterns using GIS?

Question

I posted a question, Using web mapping and geocoding to track genealogical data, over at Geographic Information Systems SE awhile ago, so I was quite excited when I saw the proposal for this site. I realised that my question has two components, namely the GIS side and the genealogical side, which is why I thought I would post the relevant part here.

Over the last year, I have gotten involved in researching my family tree. My paternal grandfather came from a remote island in the Atlantic, along with hundreds of others of his generation, and many of them settled within the same area. As the island is very small, they shared a small number of family names (a few dozen surnames, with multiple variations of the same name).

The recently established Society has compiled a small contacts database of known descendants living in the city (and by extension, any family members who are in other parts of the country as well). At the moment, all they have is the basic contact details of the individuals, and once every few months, a meeting is held to touch base with everyone.

Coming from a GIS background, I know the Society can benefit greatly from my mapping skills to keep track of the descendants, and eventually start tracing back the family trees spatially. What I would like to know is, from a genealogical viewpoint, is simply starting with known family surnames enough? What data should I request from the Society members? I don't want to broadly request "all the data you have", as it would add too much complexity at this stage.

To clarify, I would not be keeping track of the family relationships per se, but more a case of "out of the 20 Jones who originally arrived here, there are now 300 Jones families" etc. I would be relying on the other members of the society to provide the genealogical data, while I would build up and analyse the spatial information.

Answer 1

You appear to be asking what data should you request from your Society members without adding too much complexity.

I would say from each member, get their ancestral surnames along with dates that those families were in a particular place.

e.g.

Smith
 - Warsaw, Poland, up to 1846
 - Paris, France, 1818 - 1940
 - London, England, 1846 - present
 - Scranton, PA, 1902 - present
 - Miami, FL, 1920 - present

If you want to go one step further, ask them for their migration years, e.g.

Smith
 - Warsaw, Poland to London, England, 1846 
 - London, England to Scranton, PA, 1902
 - Paris, France to Miami, FL, 1920
 - Paris, France to Scranton, PA, 1940

That should give you enough to get started with mapping their ancestral homes and journeys.

Answer 2

What an exciting project.

Focused on the genealogical side, where to begin?

You asked if surnames would be enough. "Key" genealogical information consists of more than surnames. Full names, lineage, birth (baptism), marriage and death (burial) events, placed in date and location context ...

While there are certainly more informal approaches, the scholarly aspect of your project seems similar to the genealogical work done by lineage societies. You are probably familiar with some of these--the Mayflower Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames, etc. (Separate from these lineage societies, many genealogical societies in the US have developed programs/databases that recognize the descendants of the early area settlers.)

Lineage societies typically have a formal application process and require that members document their line of descent from some qualifying individual. For example, membership in the Mayflower Society requires proven descent from one of the Mayflower Pilgrams.

Most lineage societies have been gathering family information and documentation for years, so that a certain database of "proven" descent exists. New application often work to document their connection to one of the accepted or "proven" descendants (rather than to document their descent all the way back to the originally qualifying individual).

As you have described the project, it seems that over time, there could be social, genealogical, biological and cultural heritage benefits/objectives. Most of these objectives can evolve, but there are probably some priorities:

1. Pedigree Submissions. Encourage each of your society members to supply you with a Pedigree Chart. Pedigree charts capture key genealogical information about a person and three or four generations of their ancestors. (About.com has a free interactive chart online. Ancestry.com offers a printable "Ancestral Chart." Although I presume you would do this anyway, choose a format that includes not only names, but space for birth/marriage/death dates and locations. You may be talented enough to create your own online forms for this submission.)

2. Family Group Sheets. Encourage the submission of a family group sheet for each of the immigrating families (and successive generations if there is interest.) A family group sheet captures key genealogical information about head of household and a partner/spouse, all the children born to that union and the names of their partners/spouses. (KBYU offers a nice two page interactive family group record/family groups sheet; page 1, page 2. You may be talented enough to create your own online forms for these submissions.)*

3. Documentation about the original immigrants, especially digital images or copies of documents that would be considered privately held. (Family bibles, journals, pictures, personal copies of birth, baptismal and marriage records; passports/naturalization papers.)

Most genealogy software can generate pedigrees family group sheets; there are probably even some interesting collaborative sites where you might host an online family tree. Even if I were using one of those program/service solutions, I would probably still work to obtain the pedigrees and family groups sheets via e-mail as I suspect those documents probably retain a value as artifacts.

*You can obtain these for every union reported on the pedigree.

Answer 3

There is a software program called Family Atlas (www.familyatlas.com) that will import data from a variety of sources, including GEDCOM. If the coordinate of an event place is included, it will use it. Otherwise it will look up a coordinate based on the place name.

It has a variety of basic mapping capabilities but, in line with what you're asking, it can export the data to a KML file which you can use in most web and desktop GIS applications.

Answer 4

I think you need to clarify what you aim to achieve. As you have not stated where the remote island or the migration destination are, I do not know what records are available to you. Rather than take a miscellaneous collection of information, I suggest the you start work with one set of original records that you understand well. An ideal example would be an old map that records land ownership e.g. UK tithe maps, USA land plats. Then add another data set as a separate layer.

Questions you need to answer include: What scale and accuracy will you work at? Do you want to identify a town, village or an individual house? How will you deal with change over time? How will you handle incomplete or inaccurate location descriptions? How will you deal with jurisdictional changes?

Take a look at A Vision of Britain, England Jurisdictions 1851 to get a feel of mapping jurisdictions, DeedMapper and similar platting software, UCL's Surname Profiler. Would you like to produce something similar to these?

There is huge potential for GIS in genealogy, but I am not sure implementing and using its full power is at all easy.

Answer 5

To try and merge what you describe as the GIS and Genealogy sides, I would suggest thinking about how you can geocode the events and relationships stored in a family history software package inside a geodatabase so that they can be visualised using GIS tools.

I've looked unsuccessfully for a GEDCOM to Geodatabase conversion program, and am still hoping not to have to try and write one.

I defer to many other genealogists here on what you need from that perspective, but I suspect you will benefit from access to any existing family trees to go with the Society's contact database, and that surnames alone will probably not provide the detail you/they seek.

Answer 6

I love new gadgets, tools, programs, types of data displays and processing techniques. When I find one I often take some content from another project I am working on to see what the shiny new thing can do. When I do that, I have fun and I learn things about the tool. But I don't ever produce anything worthwhile at that stage. Later on, I may get the real benefit from that exploration of tool or technique X when I am working on a problem and I realise that I can use X to do Y.

A great product grows out of a genuine need, not simply the availability of a new tool. When you know precisely the problem that you are trying to solve by mapping, then the information that needs to be mapped will be obvious. It will be the stuff that has been frustrating you because all the other ways of dealing with it have not worked.

From your question, you are still at the exploration stage and it really does not matter what data the genealogy society gives you. So go ahead, ask for everything.

Or better still, use datasets from a field that you understand well to demonstrate to members of the society just what your GIS chops can do in areas other then genealogy. When they have an indication of its potential, one of them may say "What a shame that this thing cannot .... for us" And then you will have your problem.

Answer 7

This is not a clear enough question. It sounds like you want to be able to show a map with dots on it representing where people and their ancestors lived, and you want to put arrows on the map to show how the families migrated. This is obviously the task of finding out where those places are, when people lived there and geocoding the places. I conjecture this is what you mean by "geocoding a surname."

Many genenalogical programs have done this for years. They use built-in or on-line gazetteers to determine where the locations mentioned in their databases are, and then they prepare maps of the migration paths that the families have taken.