Gavin, Thanks for the response. Would you consider assisting the Scotlandsplaces people and the Genuki people by giving them a copy of your dataset ? I have been thoroughly disenchanted with mapping that I have seen to date - hence my enthusiasm over the scotlandsplaces-googlearth kml file trick - it actually does work ! And the concept is useable and repeatable and free and can be done by anybody. Tonight I started assembling my own data for input to a mapping package we use at work. Yes I have seen Genuki - it is also very good and has helped me a lot. A downside of Genuki is that I havent been able to extract raw data to plot up myself whereas the ScotlandsPlaces/Googlearth system allows me to do this. Do you know of a way of getting a listing of eastings and northings and placenames from genuki ? Although it will plot on the map for you I havent seen how to download the raw data. Is there somewhere that you know of on the web where I can download a set of shapefiles representing the various parishes and counties at various points in time ? What enchanted me about the Scotlands places google earth hookup is that with the kml files I can edit and have control of placenames and locations and can create previously unmapped places and correct errors. You can easily create new kml files by copying and editing old ones - it is like a laymans GIS system and it is free. With a liitle thought anybody could create their own mapped tree on Google Earth with notes and names and hyperlinks attached to each location I believe that Scotlands people and Google earth are using WGS 1984. Regards Bill On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 2:06 AM, Gavin Bell <g.bell@which.net> wrote: > Bill Wood wrote: > > > > Try this it is very very very good. > > > I would say it was a good deal less good than that! > > > > > > Go to Scotlandsplaces yes thats right places not people. > > > > Use the search option to find a little known place in your tree. > > > If you dig around at the site a little, you will discover the > limitations of the Gazetteer they are using: > > "The gazetteer is a work in progress. At the launch of the site (in > October 2009) it consisted mainly of entries on counties, cities, > parishes, burghs, inhabited islands, and places with at least 100 > inhabitants. Our intention is to continue to add to the gazetteer by > improving entries or adding entries on more places, which exist now or > existed at one time but have long since vanished." > > Brave aims. But I fear there is some little way to go. And there are > alternatives available now, such as the Gazetteer which forms part of > the GENUKI system. There are various routes in to this data from the > individual County and Parish pages, or you can go straight to: > > > http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/Gazetteer/ > > > Aided and abetted by Ray Hennessy, I have been developing a historical > Gazetteer of placenames in Banffshire, also using names from a variety > of historical sources. But when I compare the "Scotlandsplaces" > offering against our database for just a single small rural parish, I > can quickly identify a dozen placenames for which Ray and I have chapter > and verse, but which do not appear on Scotlandsplaces. > > > > > Maybe they will have some photographs and maybe not. > > But the photographs are going to be of places which figure in the files > of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of > Scotland (RCAHMS) - they are not often going to show the places where > our ancestors were likely to have lived. > > > > > Here comes the good bit > > > > Hit the button that says Plot Results on a Virtual Globe > > > > You will be prompted to download a .kml file > > > > Download the kml file somehwere sensible and double click on it - this > will > > fire up Google Earth > > > > Your location is now shown on google earth and you can add notes to the > > location ie > > > > Granda Wilson built his whisky distillery here, wee McWillie Wilson born > > here 1863. > > I have to say this part of what is offered strikes me as a bit creaky. > If you try the GENUKI Gazetteer mentioned above, you find links that go > straight (no downloading, no waiting for Google Earth) to pages which > will show your chosen location on a range of different mapping services, > and/or on a satellite image. > > > > > Am still experimenting - you can put in hyperlinks and open up web pages > but > > I havent been able to put in a hyperlink that will open up files on my > PC. > > > > And as a free bonus you get Lat and Long of your location for input to > other > > programs. > > > So long as you know which flavour of Latitude and Longitude you are > getting! The documentation for my GPS receiver lists over 100 different > "Map Datums" which are used in different places to allow for the fact > that the Earth is not a perfect sphere - and there are at least 3 > different ways of calculating Lat/Longs which are valid (for varying > purposes) in the UK. The differences between them in terms of postion > on the ground is often as great as 100 metres, and translating between > them involves some very hairy maths. * > > > > I am quite excited about this as I have been severely dissappointed by > > programs claiming to map family trees but failing abysmally > > > > ANybody know a similar location for English places try ? > > > GENUKI (link above) covers UK & Ireland. > > > This Gazzetteer is > > good http://www.gazetteer.co.uk/index.htm - it wont give you a kml file > but > > it will help with obscure placenames > > > I don't know how good it is for England, but it knows even less than > "Scotlandsplaces" about NE Scotland. > > > Gavin Bell > > > > * for chapter and verse, see: > > > http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/gps/docs/A_Guide_to_Coordinate_Systems_in_Great_Britain.pdf > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ABERDEEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Bill Wood wrote: > > Would you consider assisting the Scotlandsplaces people and the Genuki > people by giving them a copy of your dataset ? Genuki already have my Banffshire data - all the map-derived placenames that Ray and I have collected are already in the Genuki Gazetteer. Placenames for which there was only an approximate location (mostly ex-Census) are listed in the parish-by-parish Gazetteers available (for most parishes) via a link under "Names, Geographical". As regards any further distribution of the data, well, I have my own plans for that. > I have been thoroughly disenchanted with mapping that I have seen to date - > hence my enthusiasm over the scotlandsplaces-googlearth kml file trick - it > actually does work ! And the concept is useable and repeatable and free and > can be done by anybody. Anybody? My feeling is that there are other, more straightforward, ways in which the average, non-nerdy, Family Historian can get useful mapping data off the web. For example: http://www.abdnet.co.uk/burialgrounds/ or that site's still experimental successor: http://www.abdnet.co.uk/googlemaps/newkirkyardmap08a.html > > Tonight I started assembling my own data for input to a mapping package we > use at work. > > Yes I have seen Genuki - it is also very good and has helped me a lot. > > A downside of Genuki is that I havent been able to extract raw data to plot > up myself whereas the ScotlandsPlaces/Googlearth system allows me to do > this. > > Do you know of a way of getting a listing of eastings and northings and > placenames from genuki ? Although it will plot on the map for you I havent > seen how to download the raw data. As regards that, I would refer you to: http://www.genuki.org.uk/contents/#Copyright The fact that data may be available free of charge does not automatically mean it is available to be re-published. > Is there somewhere that you know of on the web where I can download a set of > shapefiles representing the various parishes and counties at various points > in time ? No. And when I faced the same problem I set to and generated that data myself. You can see some of the results on the "newkirkyardmap" site above. > > I believe that Scotlands people and Google earth are using WGS 1984. WGS84 is a useful compromise for some purposes (eg SATNAV) but national mapping agencies, like the Ordnance Survey, use map datums that give a better fit locally to the rather irregular shape of the Earth. And while modern OS maps are based on something called OSGB36, earlier OS maps (as the name hints) used different standards (and different map projections). Family History is necessarily going to concern itself with placenames found only on old maps, so it becomes important to understand the differences. Gavin Bell