Where in the world did my ancestors live?!

Right, settle down, frugal family historians. Today’s geography lesson will save you some money.  Pay attention at the back there!

Did your ancestors come from an area you’re not familiar with?  When you found out where your great-grandparents lived, did you have problems finding the place on a modern map?  These free tools will help you locate your forebears’ town, village, or maybe even farm.  We’ll start with the big picture and work down to local level. 

First, on a global scale, let’s look at FamilySearch Places.  Type the place name you want to learn about in the box labelled “Search for a Place” on the left of the map.  You may be given several options, so pick the one that looks closest to what you want.  I checked out Saint Helier in the Channel Islands as an example, and once I’d selected the parish, the map focused on the exact location (although I could zoom in even closer).  I could also see general information – and a link to a related Wikipedia entry, if you trust it! – the town’s latitude and longitude, population history, and links to other sites including the official town web page.

Looking back in time as well as around the world, we can revisit the British Empire and the impact it had for centuries by exploring Legacies of British Slave Ownership.  This site lets you identify the Caribbean and British estates of slaveholders with its mapping facility, or search the database of individuals and companies connected with the slave trade.  Learn how slave ownership shaped Britain and other nations, and discover the legacies it left behind.

Narrowing down to the United Kingdom, A Vision of Britain Through Time is a popular website that links maps to census reports over the decades.  Select your location of interest and then choose from a range of topics such as housing, work, and infant mortality, to understand what life was like for your family at a given period in time.  Also featured is a handy gazetteer from 1900 to help you pinpoint locations that may have vanished from the landscape since then.

Many of the place names in England can be traced back to medieval times, and are listed in Open Domesday, the electronic version of William the Conqueror’s land survey. Find out who owned the land, how it was used, what it was worth, and how much tax was payable on it.  If your Latin’s up to it you can read images of the original book.

Turning finally to the capital city, Bomb Sight maps the London Blitz of the Second World War, showing the locations where bombs fell over a nine-month period.  You can see how many bombs were dropped in one night, a week, or overall during that time.  Try exploring a neighbourhood using the search facility, or for a stunning visual representation of the Blitz, zoom out of the map using the slider at the left of the screen.  Click on a bomb icon to find out its exact site and description.  Some records include photographs of the aftermath of the bombing and recorded memories of witnesses.  If you’re in London, there’s an augmented reality app you can use on the ground.

Geography and history are two strands of the same thread.  It’s almost impossible to trace your family’s history without being aware of where they lived or came from.  So get digging into the places of your people’s past, and you’re bound to discover more than just a spot on the map.