creating a family history geography road trip · creating a family history geography road trip ......

1http://heritagecollector.comCopyright Marlo E. Schuldt 2014OcCreating a Family History Geography

Volume 8 #1

Creating a Family History Geography Road Trip

We live in a fast changing world. The old homeand buildings on our grandparent’s farm mayhave been torn down when the farm was sold.

The home we grew up in may have beenextensively remodeled making it almostunrecognizable and hard to find. Many of thelandmarks and places we visited as childrenhave changed or no longer exist. The contextof our personal history and geographic cluesare changing, deteriorating and disappearingbefore our eyes.

It’s time to take the family on a Road Trip!

Preservation - It’s Now or Never!

Changes in our personal geography makes family

history more abstract,

less tangible and

difficult for our children

to comprehend when all

that’s left are a few old

photos and stories told

out of context at family

gatherings.

Marinus Baadsgaard

traveled from Denmark to

the United States in

around 1896. At sixteen

years of age, his first job

was to heard sheep for

his room and board.

c

The Old ShoeboxNewsletter

by Marlo E. Schuldt

Copyright 2014

In the 1960’s I worked at this Conoco gas station with

my dad. The job helped me earn spending money. I

worked each day after school and on weekends. My

dad taught me how to work on cars which benefits me

to this day. This job paid for my gas and the first used

car I purchased after graduating from high school. Many

memories are associated with this location and photo.

Years later the service station was converted to a Mr.

Brake business. The photo above was taken in 2009

showing yet another name change and repurposing to

become a Domino’s Pizza. I’m glad the building

continues to survive. 43 29.68670 N 112 2.96494 W


During the winter months he lived in brick house out on an isolated farm.

The old house was not an easy place to locate because it was out in the middle of an cow pasture. Several years

ago an older relative guided us to the location of the farm. Recently we traveled to the old house but had a hard

time finding it because it had disappeared.

No trace of the old brick home remained. We assumed

It had been torn down because it was in very dangerous

and unstable condition. The bricks were probably sold

as antiques and may now be a part of a new home.

We were able to compare the old photos and

surroundings with our new photos (above). We also

looked at the GPS location on the Internet to verify the

old and new photos were of the same place.

We are fortunate to have taken photos and coordinates

back in 2005 since the house is now gone forever.

We knew there would be problems at several of our

family history locations because there were no structures

remaining there to see and associate with a story.

Location of the Family Farm Home Today. House as it appeared many years ago. 40 7.77050 N 111 .97101 W

Many fond memories of fishing here as a boy with my

parents on the Snake River at St. Anthony, Idaho. My

children need to visit this place and see the eagle nest

on the bridge. 43.9719435605446 -

Century Old Brick Farm House Grandpa First Lived in Around 1896 40 9.25600 N 111 43.28600 W


The century old brick house had been torn down and

the old family home on the family farm had been leveled

to utilize more ground. Grandpa passed several years

ago so he could not be there tell his life and death

swimming story.

Travel Back in Time - Take a Road Trip

Recently we invited our brothers, sisters and their children

to go on a short guided tour of their family history.

Our goal was to visit the locations of stories and events

from our personal history. Combining stories with photos

at each stop helped everyone feel more connected with

the events in their family history.

We traveled in a caravan to each location, gathered

everyone around, and shared a story that occurred at

each location. Other previously unknown stories were

spontaneously offered which enriched each experience.

We gathered at the appointed time in the parking lot of

a restaurant near an interstate highway. A brief summary

was given about each of the places we planned to visit

in case someone became separated during the journey.

Heritage Collector was used to print a GPS map. It had

correspondingly numbered photo thumbnails to assist

with the navigation route marker to each location.

Our tour began at the old farm home where great

grandfather lived around 1896. The old brick home was

gone making it difficult for the children to visualize where

their great great grandfather had lived as a teenager.

However, holding up and passing around the 2005 photo

of the house while telling the story made it easy to

associate the missing landmark with the story.

Economic times were difficult in the early days and

people worked hard just to feed their families. The

children learned where their grandpa had worked at the

sugar factory while standing in front of the old refinery.

His mode of transportation was by foot during the summer

heat, or the cold and snowy days of winter. The distance

is now hard to visualize at ground level. However, looking

at the terrain from a satellite view makes it easier to

see how far grandpa had to travel each day.

Children and their parents visit the graves and hear

stories about their great grand parents.

40 6.19667 N 111 38.75167 W

Geographical Landmarks Combined With StoriesEnrich and Make the Experience Real and Tangible

Photo of the old sugar processing plant today.

40 6.32628 N 111 40.80898 W


Preparing for Your Family History Road Trip

1. Create a Family History Geography

collection. Import or copy photos into the

collection.

2. Travel and take photos of all the remaining

landmarks, homes and locations that have

relevance to your family history.

3. Use a smart phone to associate GPS

coordinates with each of the photos. Make sure

your phone has the location option turned on

so the photos will have GPS coordinates added

as you take each photo.

4. Don’t have a smart phone? Use the “Get GPS”

option in the Edit Info option to get and associate

coordinates. Right click on the thumbnail and

select Edit Info. Click the “Get GPS” button.

This will display a map. Zoom out and drag your

cursor to the location of the image. Left click on

the map. This will display the GPS coordinates

in the upper left window. Click OK. This will

return you to the photo display with the

coordinates. Click the Save button. Refer to

pages 41 and 49 In your manual or click the

Help button at the bottom of the Edit Info display

and then scroll down to the information about

adding GPS coordinates to a photo.

Showing a photo of the missing family farm house

while standing in front of the location makes it

easier to visualize where the house stood (above).

Comparing the photo of the farm house with the

photo of grandma standing in front of the house

makes it easy to verify where the photo was taken

right).

Grandma standing in front of the family farm home.

It appears they had just cut down a very large tree.

40 7.77050 N 111 42.97101 W


Preparing for Your Road Trip Tour of Discovery

A little advanced planning and preparation can save

frustration and time and make the experience more

enjoyable for all attending.

While in the GPS Track option, Print out a map for

each family attending or for each car that will be in your

caravan. This will help keep everyone together if you

get separated along the journey.

1. Select the collection, click the GPS Tab and

then click the GPS Track option.

2. Zoom down on the map to get a more

detailed view listing the road and street

names.

3. Click the

Print button

and select

Map and

Thumbnails

with captions.

Travel Suggestions

1. There may be several cars in your procession.

Scout out in advance the route so you can

select safe places to park along the road.

2. You may be making several U turns. Make the

U turn BEFORE you stop at the site so

everyone will ready to proceed to the next stop.

This will save time and confusion before you

start your presentation and help keep everyone

together as you depart from each site.

3. Safety is critical since you will have children

along the side of roads and highways that might

be busy. Everyone needs to be vigilant in

watching out for everyone standing on the side

of a roadway.

4. Review and give everyone a map before you

start so you can all stay together.

5. Allow for extra time for stories and questions

that will come up at each stop.

6. Take photos, video and audio recordings at each

stop to capture the new information.

7. Add the new information to the geography

collection.

8. For those who can not attend, there may be a

desire to travel to these locations in the future

to get more of a feel and to put it into

perspective. Share the geography collection via

a Gift CD /DVD or via a shared folder in Dropbox.

Note that the thumbnails are numbered to correspond

with the number on the orange pointer on the map.

(See bottom of page three).

Grandchildren touching the same bricks laid by their

great grandpa as he built the 60 foot chimney for this

beautiful old school. 40 2.62286 N 111 43.44737 W

Advanced Tip. Go into the GPS Track option. Clicking

the “Play” button at the top left will cause a split screen

slideshow to play with oral narrative while showing the

photo and a GPS satellite view of the site of the location.

creating a family history geography road trip · creating a family history geography road trip ......

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