Posts
Genealogical mapping programs aren't new or that uncommon, but this new App called The Family Nexus is outstanding in its utility and ease of use. Basically, the app connects to your portion of the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, loads several generations of your ancestors and then displays the results in a zoomable map interface. Here is a video that illustrates how this mapping app works.
Introducing The Family Nexus Mobile App
I downloaded the app and waited a few minutes while it compiled the markers indicating where some event occurred in an ancestor or relative's life. Here is a screenshot of what I saw when I looked at the western United States.
When I zoomed in on Provo, Utah, I found that 14 events had occurred right here in Provo.
When I clicked on the number, I got a specific list of each event and the person involved.
The trickiest part of this was taking the screenshots with my iPhone. I showed this to my wife and we immediately realized that had we had this app during our trip to the Northeastern United States last year, we could have visited graves and other places of interest that we passed without knowing what had happened in that area.
I will definitely be using this app. See http://thefamilynexus.com/the-family-nexus-mobile-app/
Another way to find discrepancies. It apparently works with the standardized places. After uploading I found an outlier and when I clicked on it, it was a great-great-great uncle buried in Georgia instead of Illinois. The burial place on the profile was entered as "Morgan, Illinois, Ebenezer" an artifact of PAF and the 1990s but the standardized place had entered as Morgan Co., Georgia. Both entries were brought up-to-date and my uncle has been brought back from Georgia to Illinois.
ReplyDeleteThanks for trying it Ric! The app does indeed used the standardized places stored in FamilySearch. I first used the app to clean up discrepancies in my FS Tree as well. Finding pins for events in India, Africa, or South America (in my case) were clear indicators that I had some data cleanup to do!
Delete