I’m on the tail end of Lesson 11 in the NGS-HSC. Since I haven’t made my repository trips required for some of the other lessons, I thought I’d get some of the “no visit” lessons out of the way. I have spent a huge amount of time on Lesson 11. There’s two assignments, one to analyze the migration of a family and one to analyze 100 people in a locale during one census and then another (though the lesson doesn’t say, I assumed two sequential census). I may have done this wrong in that I used two different families for the two assignments. I had one family that had significant movement during several generations that was perfect for the first assignment. For the second assignment, I’ve been struggling with the pre-Texas origins of a family so I thought that would be a perfect reason to analyze the neighbors to see if I can get better clues to their origins. We’ll see when it’s graded if I should have used the same families.
For the map required for assignment 1, I started with Google Maps. Select the My Places button, and then Create Map.
Name your map on the title line and add an optional description (note that Lesson 11 has a specific naming convention for your map) and then select the Save button.
I had a mix of generations who moved and generations that stayed in more or less the sample place (enough so that discrete flags for those families would simply be one on top of another). I used the mapping to show the large moves. In the search box next to the Google logo, enter the first location. Below, I show the result for Austin, Texas. If you notice on the left, a Save to Map link appears.
Click on that link. Select the correct map from the dropdown box and click on the Save button.
I didn’t have a lot of luck with the print functionality (in the upper right corner). I ended up doing a screen print and magnified it. Just thought I’d share the Google Map option since I spent a lot of time trying to find the best way to present this without having my assignment look like a 4th grader did it. Once the map is produced, you need to create a line for each generation’s travel.
As you try to determine what path they took, check out the Family Tree Magazine and their map of migration routes. I also recommend spending some time with the American Migration Patterns website by Beverly Whitaker, MA.