RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Althea7 on Monday 15 April 19 14:03 BST (UK)
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I have a lot of members of one family who lived in central Manchester from around 1830 to the 1870's, most of them in the Ancoats area. I want to make a list of all the addresses given on records of births, deaths, marriages and residences, and gravestones or burial spots if I can find them, and plot them on a map, which I can have on my computer and upload to my Ancestry family tree, maybe under Media. Maybe I can even take photographs of the streets where they lived and the actual addresses, or what is there now, and somehow link this to the map and the people.
I have no idea how to do this. Maybe I could print off a Google map and manually plot the addresses, and then upload that back to my computer and have that on the Internet. There are problems to that as I might not get enough detail of the individual streets in the size of map even for Ancoats, where most of these ancestors lived, and probably not combined with a map that goes out as far as Salford. Is there any way to do all of this online, and so it looks really clear and professional? What would be the best way to link all this to my Ancestry family tree? Or should I try to make a separate format for this family and just concentrate on them, to present all the information I have about this one family? What is the best format to do this in?
Another thought is that maybe I am trying to re-invent the wheel by taking street photographs myself, and maybe I can just enter the addresses into Google Street View? Is there any advantage in taking photographs myself? I am wondering if just to use my simple small camera, or drag an SLR along for better photographs?
Has anybody else here tried anything like this?
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On Google Maps, if you click on the 3 lines symbol (the "hamburger"!) next to the search places box, you can select "Your Places".
You can then ., or embed it.
I've done this for some friends who were visiting Bristol, and I mapped Real Ale pubs, hotels and some places of interest.
Then I shared it, and they used it on mobile phones (I think!).
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I've done this on a larger scale with the precise location of farms, using Google Earth. You could do the same thing with urban locations.
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I've not tried this on such a great scale as you intend but I have used screen shots of street maps pasted into paint and then added text boxes and crosses or spots to show relevant residences. I also use Google street view to capture images of the buildings, if they still exist. It's also worth using a combination of Google images, Rightmove sold history and Zoopla for the address, sales particulars and images from them hang around on the web for ages & I've found some great interior & exterior images of ancestors homes
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Once you have the locations marked and saved, it's easy to zoom in and use the clipper tool to capture the bits that you want and then paste the images into a document.
This is my gg-grandfather's farm as it is today and next door is gg-uncle Anthony's place. They were there in the 1830s to the 1860s and the original houses are long gone so the street view is not very useful in this case.
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This is something I too would like to do with my family in Leeds. I've an Excel file with all the addresses but would like to view the map of the areas to see how close they lived.
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This is something I too would like to do with my family in Leeds. I've an Excel file with all the addresses but would like to view the map of the areas to see how close they lived.
This may or may not give the detail you need, nor be in the right time frame:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14.729073765860516&lat=53.8011&lon=-1.5331&layers=168&right=BingHyb
You can zoom in and out, and scroll around the map.
It might be useful to use google maps as a guide then locate the streets on the NLS map, then view the side by side to compare the then and now. ;) Sometimes street names change or streets of houses are demolished so keep that in mind. :)
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I love sitting with Old maps and modern maps and trying to work out where my ancestors lived and what I looks like now. One of mine lived next door to where the Usher Hall is now. When she lived there she was surrounded by fields and it was outside the City of Edinburgh, now it is very much in the city.
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I love sitting with Old maps and modern maps and trying to work out where my ancestors lived and what I looks like now. One of mine lived next door to where the Usher Hall is now. When she lived there she was surrounded by fields and it was outside the City of Edinburgh, now it is very much in the city.
It’s great fun I agree. :)
as well as challenging and educational ....
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Thanks for your very helpful replies. I think I will try to buy a big poster size old map of Manchester, if I can. I need to understand where all these streets were, so need to study an old map intensely before I start marking all the places where my ancestors lived.
One of these ancestors I am very curious about was Thomas Greenwood, baptised 1817 in Heptonstall, who came to Manchester with his parents and siblings around 1830, where his younger sister Mary was born. On various records, such as his 1846 marriage record at Manchester Cathedral, and the birth certificates of his sons Hiram, b 1846, and James Henry b 1848, he is described as a Marine Store Keeper, or Waste Dealer, or Broker. I am fairly sure it is him on the 1855 Slaters Directory of Manchester, Thomas Greenwood, Marine Store Dealer, lived at River Street. His son James Henry was born on January 7th 1848 at 48 Medlock Street, Cellar, Hulme, which is just around the corner from River Street. It is possibly also him on the 1852 Whellan and Co's Directory of Manchester, Thomas Greenwood Pawnbroker, 66 Carruthers Street. The 1841 census has James Ward, Broker, born Ireland, residence Medlock Street, and Thomas Greenwood's wife was Bridget Ward, born Ireland, father James, labourer (according to marriage record) born about 1799. On the 1851 census Thomas Greenwood is living at 3 Clegg Court, Hulme, with his wife Bridget, his two infant sons Hiram and James Henry, and Bridget's siblings Betsy Ward, 23, house servant, and John Ward, 14. I am wondering if James Ward and Thomas Greenwood ran the same shop in this area. I have very little information on the Ward family. Those two records of possible business premises run by Thomas Greenwood were all I can find, and it would be amazing to find their premises on an old map, and even better to get some insight into James Ward. I can't find any of this family on the 1861 census, and only my ancestor Hiram, born 1846, re-appears again on the 1871 census. I traced Hiram from birth certificate to death certificate, but couldn't find a marriage record for him, but did get the birth and death certificates for his first born child Rebecca, born 1867 died 1871, Salford. I think I found Thomas on the 1871 census as a lodger age 52 born Hepdon (sic) Bridge,living with an Ann Greenwood 40, in Market Street, Manchester, Card Dealer. Bridget had died on December 30th 1867 at 1 Court, Bennett Street (now Bendix Street), Ancoats, Manchester age 49. Thomas died on March 12th 1873 at 63 Long Millgate age 56, Card Picker, Informant Ann Greenwood. There is, according to the UK City and County Directories, Thomas Greenwood living at 23 Long Millgate, a Whitesmith. Can't find a marriage record of Thomas to Ann Greenwood, presumably between 1867 and 1873.
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If you're recording all your data on a computer, most DBs software should allow you to record lat/long on any Place, since this is all part of standard GEDCOM.
Finding old locations can involve a LOT of research.
In the DB I happen to use, this lat/long data, once found, can be used to drive Geography views;
https://www.gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php/Geography
BugBear
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My old geography master, 45 years ago used to despair over what looked as though a spider crawled through an Inkwell onto my book. I used to absolutely hate comparing an aerial photograph of a place with a corresponding map, and by the time I left school I still didn't enjoy it, and yet these days I can find very few more enjoyable pursuits. He would have been astonished to see Google Earth and Google Street View.
Martin
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It's not something I've used much, but RootsMagic includes a feature which will display a map showing all the locations that have been entered in it's database for an individual. Think it uses Bing maps.
Mike.
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"very few more enjoyable pursuits"
I agree. I'm still trying to work out a good way to handle the movements of one branch of the tree that lodged themselves in Brooklyn, NY and then moved around from one address to another between 1834 and 1900ish. The main problem is that the streets were renumbered and it's hard to tie the old numbers to the new ones. For the rural ancestors, the hang-up is finding a plat map for a relevant year or a land purchase from the government that gives the precise location. There are still a lot of farms that I haven't been able to pinpoint.