Wouldn’t it be great to be able to visit every town and village that you know your ancestors lived or worked in? Don’t have the money it takes to make those trips? Is the country shut down due to Covid or other travel restrictions? Are you one that hates to fly, or worried about going to another country and language barrier, driving,, bus or train difficulties? Or are you just plain curious about where they came from?
Technology today is AMAZING! Thanks to the internet and travel bloggers and sites like trip advisor, you can see these places without ever having to leave home.
I know that one side of my family came from Germany. I know that they immigrated from Baden-Wurttemberg Germany. So I pulled up Google Maps and typed in Baden in the search bar. It pulled up the area I wanted and I clicked on it. You can see the map, the quick facts about the city and Google and user uploaded photos !
If you are using the census records and find an address you can type in the address in google maps and pull up the view now!
I had an address to the bakery of my great great grandfather in Kentucky. I typed it into Google Maps and pulled up the building!. How Amazing is that? And in doing a little more research of the address I can see the interior and the apartments.
I also had a physical home address from the 1910 census that I used and typed in Google Maps. Unfortunately there is no photo or information , so that was a dead end. So it isn’t always roses if the home is no longer there, or the google car hasnt scanned the area yet, or there is a big van blocking the front of the house and you cant actually see anything (speaking from personal experience)
If Google Maps has a dead end, Another great tool is GOOGLE EARTH! It seems to be a little more advanced and I was able to see a little bit more than I was on maps. The big van was no longer blocking the way and I was able to see where the house SHOULD have been was now just an empty lot.
Tips for using Google Earth:
The little traveler icon needs to be dropped it one of the areas with a blue dot, as those are areas that have photos, street view and documented uploads. The best part of these two google tools is you can play around and see what each tool does. The Google Earth tool is really fun to watch it zoom and build up in a 3-D model and suddenly you are there!
Makes me ready to pack my bags and visit!!
TRIP ADVISOR: Believe it or not, this is a great resource as well. I went to trip advisor and typed in Baden Germany
So you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to travel and explore the places your ancestors came from or settled in. With a little digging, a few internet tools and a click of a button you can take a virtual tour of your ancestral homelands!!
