Mike Williams <nospam@econym.demon.co.uk> wrote: > Wasn't it Mardon who wrote: >>I'm in the process of creating a KML file to identify all of my >>important family history locations. For people not familiar with KML, >>it's Keyhole Markup Language, something akin to HTML or XML but it's >>used in conjunction with geographic browsers like Google Earth. > > I use XML rather than KML so that I can filter the information as > required, for example to just display the locations where one > individual lived. Like this: > > http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/family/imap.htm?indi=121 > > The location information for all individuals is in a single XML file. > imap.htm reads the corresponding entries in that file, displays the > information, and centres and zooms the map so that all the locations > for that individual are in view. > > My main family tree website calls that map in an <iframe>, like this: > > http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/family/ind121.html Thank you, Mike. Your approach is very nice. I like it a lot. I would like to build something similar, so I looked through the source statements of the imap.htm file and found the following references: // This Javascript is based on code provided by the // Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team // http://www.commchurch.freeserve.co.uk/ // http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/googlemaps/ Unfortunately, neither of these URLs seem to be working. Would it be possible to get a sample of the "familymap.xml" file? Is there anything else I'd need to know in order to get a similar thing working on my website? (www.ErblandBrown.org) Thanks, Mardon

Wasn't it Mardon who wrote: > >Thank you, Mike. Your approach is very nice. I like it a lot. I would >like to build something similar, so I looked through the source >statements of the imap.htm file and found the following references: > > // This Javascript is based on code provided by the > // Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team > // http://www.commchurch.freeserve.co.uk/ > // http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/googlemaps/ > >Unfortunately, neither of these URLs seem to be working. Would it be >possible to get a sample of the "familymap.xml" file? Is there anything >else I'd need to know in order to get a similar thing working on my >website? (www.ErblandBrown.org) The Maps API tutorial got so popular that it broke the bandwidth limits and had to be moved to a different ISP: http://econym.googlepages.com/index.htm The XML file is here: http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/family/familymap.xml I found that the hard part was actually finding the locations. Since much of the data was collected from hand written documents, some of which are over 200 years old, there are transcription errors. Some of the original information was obtained from illiterate individuals and uses strange spelling. Many of the streets no longer exist. Some of the towns have changed their names, e.g. "Layton with Warbreck" is now "Blackpool". Some of the county boundaries have changed, e.g. modern geocoders can't find "Bowness, Westmorland" because it's now in Cumbria. -- Mike Williams Gentleman of Leisure