Monday, February 15, 2010

Google Maps - 52 weeks to better genealogy

Last night I made my first attempt at creating a map with Google maps to illustrate where George Iles, my great-grandfather lived in England before coming to Canada.
 
The above is from a screen shot but click this link to go to the Google map

When I inbedded the map, it only focused on one locality and it wasn't the one I would have highlighted.  I need to explore this and possibly other sites as I would like to be able to number them in order or to add comments to each locality. Perhaps, I can combine this with the timeline.

This morning, I did a map of the locations where my grandparents lived at the time of their marriage according to the marriage certificate.  He was at 49 Byron Road, Small Heath, Birmingham, England and she was at 6 Back Little Green Lane, Small Heath, Birmingham, England.



Looking at street view, I suspect that the homes they lived in are long gone. 6 Back - leads me to believe that they lived in the back side of a building.  link to map

To learn more about Back to Back housing in Birmingham, there are several sites available
National Trust - Back to Back - Tours are available to see how the housing has changed over the years. I note that part of the tour is on Inge Street. My grandmother at the time of her birth was living at 31 Inge Street. I would love to be able to visit the area to get an idea what life would have been like for them in the early 1900s in Birmingham.  (Inge Street is not available on Street View).

BBC site with information

Birmingham Heritage Forum

I see that there are a number of books written about Back to back housing. It looks like it would be something worthwhile reading to get a better understanding of life for my grandparents.

© 2010 Janet Iles

3 comments:

  1. Hi Janet,
    After placing the blue "pins" in your Google Map, when you are in edit mode you can add descriptions and titles to the places. By making the titles numbers it would show people the order and underneath it they will see your comments. For example, my map for this is here. I hope to create some that show the immigration patterns of my ancestors next and will use your idea of numbering the places, which I hadn't thought of. Hope that helped, let me know if I can explain help any more!

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  2. Thanks Amanda. I will give it a try.

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