Coordinates for places- fomerly RE: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Powiat maps of Russian Poland

Thu Mar 18 11:40:50 PST 2004

Yes, and any of you that don't use the Deluxe version of Legacy 5.0 and have
to work 'manually':

There is one of my favorite websites http://www.heavens-above.com which is
originally designed for star seekers, astronomy freaks and specialists on
satellites and iridium flares.
On behalf of entering the correct location for getting the right time when
the ISS (or any other thing up there) will pass over your head they have a
great database which maps place name and geographical coordinates.

If you are not registered just click on the link 'select your location from
our huge database', select Poland and enter the (today's) place name. Don't
miss to use the link 'Neighbors' in the result list. You will be astonished!

If you enter your hometown you should also click on the town name. Don't
miss to get the 10 day predictions for: ISS. It's great to watch (now that
MIR isn't up there anymore).

Have fun!
Jutta

Oh, and by the way: I think they use the Gauss-Krueger Coordinate System
(that is usually used in Europe). Maybe somebody from the U.S. or Canada can
find out what geographically coordinate system is used on this side of the
pond?

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Warner [mailto:gary at warnerengineering.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 5:58 PM
To: Jutta Dennerlein; ger-poland-volhynia
Subject: Coordinates for places- fomerly RE: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia]
Powiat maps of Russian Poland

To all,

Adding geographic coordinates to place names is indeed a good idea, and, as
Karl notes, adds a great deal of satisfaction to your family history work
to know where a place is located.

Any of you that use the Deluxe version of Legacy 5.0 as your family history
program can now add geographic coordinates to all place names using a
feature called Geo Location List.  It is based on an electronic gazetteer
of the world that is a part of the program, and although not foolproof,
works most of the time, especially if you have a reasonable clue how to
spell the place, or at least know what the place name starts with or sounds
like.   The times when I cannot make it work are usually when one of our
members gives me a place in the USA and there are three such places in
different counties in the same state!

For instance, In Karl's place called "(Kustanai) Qostanay, Kazakhstan", it
seems that Qostanay is the state or region in Kazakhstan in which Kustanai
is located, and that Kustanai is located at coordinates N531000,
E0633500.  When you have found this place in the Geo Location List, Legacy
will add those coordinates to that place name in your family file, and then
ALSO link you to a Map Quest map that shows where it is in the world!  Very
cool in my estimation.

For those of you who submit data to me for inclusion in the master Pedigree
Database, it would sure be nice if you all used this feature, or anything
else that ensured consistent spelling of place names (to the extent that
such is possible), so that there are not a dozen different spellings of the
same place name that I then have to merge manually.  In my current merge of
data. I just made 13 different spellings of Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada into one master location.  Oh that it were possible to do that with
all places  :-)

Gary Warner
Gig Harbor, WA

At 11:25 PM 3/17/2004, Jutta Dennerlein wrote:
>Karl, I recently had a discussion with another genealogist how likely it
>would be that an English speaking Census Taker would write down
>'Friedrichsburg' when a German immigrant gave his place of birth as
>'Friedrichsberg' using a heavy German accent and trying to speak English.
>So I just tried to imagine what kind of data you would find today if your
>ancestors would have answered "(Kustanai) Qostanay, Kazakhstan" as their
>origin :)
>
>I think it is a good idea to enter the current country. But then the world
>keeps changing and even your carefully researched data can only be
>interpreted in a correct way if it is dated information. Anyone using your
>data in 50 years time might have the same difficulties locating the places
>if he/she doesn't consider the fact that you entered the data in 2004 and
>that he/she will need an (old) map of that time period to find the place.
>Maybe adding the geographical coordinates would be a good option?
>
>Jutta
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org
>[mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org]On Behalf Of Karl
>Krueger
>Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 5:02 AM
>To: Peter Fischer
>Cc: ger-poland-volhynia
>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Powiat maps of Russian Poland
>
>
> >Secondly, many
> >people that post ancestral information simply put Germany or Poland, etc.
>down
> >as a birthplace. It would be the same as stating North America for any of
>us
> >over on this side of the pond.
>
> >I guess its just a pet peeve of mine
>
>Well that's a pet peeve of mine too but unfortunately many times all we
have
>to go on is what others know, and this may be all they know. If they had no
>interest in genealogy they would not realize the importance of giving
>specific information. Another good example I see all the time is Germans
who
>listed their parent's death location in EWZ as Russland. When you translate
>that into our current geography that could mean Russia, Belarus, Ukraine,
>Kazakhstan, and as was just confirmed to me this week Uzbekistan. So at the
>time, any cities I find in these EWZ records would have been the Soviet
>Union but many times that gives readers little idea of where that location
>is.
>
>To help out anyone in the future using the data I enter, I have been
>entering the current country just so they know where to find this city.
>"Russland" is a vast land where even some genealogists might get lost just
>as many Germans did. "Kustanai, Russland" really tells you nothing but
>"(Kustanai) Qostanay, Kazakhstan" immediately tells how far this family was
>displaced and where you need to look for this bizarre city.
>
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
>
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