Stellar Books and Things
Genealogy Home |
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Finding United States Locations
Using On-Line
Aerial Photos and Topographical Maps |
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With the internet, new features and refinements of older sites are occurring constantly. Some of these features can be used as genealogy research aids or for simply finding locations for places such as old cemeteries. The capability now exists |
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to very precisely locate places that once were difficult to find. As a demonstration of this, I’ve used the U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), shown on the right, to find cemeteries in Arkansas with my surname, GOAD. |
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According to GNIS, there are two cemeteries with GOAD in the name, the Goad Springs Cemetery in Benton County and the Goad Cemetery in White County. The GNIS query provides information that includes feature type, state, county, the map the feature is found on, and the latitude and longitude. |
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The next step I’ve taken is to go to the Microsoft Terra Server site. This site provides aerial photo images and/or maps of the entire United States and some images from elsewhere in the world. |
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that uses latitude and longitude, which I used. The latitude for the Goad Springs Cemetery in Benton County is 361459N and the longitude is 0940911W. The values were entered as seen in the example on the left. The initial result is provided below. A topographical “locator” is on the upper left of the page. The initial aerial photo has a resolution of 16 meters for each pixel of the |
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image (represented by the red line line on the selection graph). Three image styles are available, relief, topo(graphical), and photo with various magnifications. When I selected topo for the same resolution (16 meters, I found a stream by the name of Goad Springs. It was not |
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in the center of the image as I might have expected. Rather it was off to the right. When I clicked on the main image in the area of the stream, it opened a new map image at a resolution of 8 meters per pixel. Each time I clicked in the area, the resolution increased by 2 until at 2 meters per pixel, the name “Goad Springs Cem” was shown. |
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The map and photo images on the left demostrate a couple of things. The first of course is that it may not be possible to positively identify some things from an arial photo, but it does provide some indication of the terrain such as fields, forests, roads and structures (Note the two long chicken houses in the map and the photo). With this map and photo, I could have found this cemetary in 5 minutes instead of the hour it took me last year. The second thing that these images demonstrate is change. The topographical map is dated June 1980. The photo is 11 April 1995. In the 15 years between the two dates, an interstate with a local interchange has been built. |
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Copyright © 1999 by Michael Goad. All rights reserved. The pages of this site may be freely linked to. Facts and ideas from this site may be freely used. (Facts and ideas can’t be copyrighted.) None of the following may be duplicated without consent:
- The selection and arrangement of facts and ideas located on this web site or any major portion thereof. (The originality I’ve put into it.)
- The original expression that the facts and ideas of this website are clothed in, except as allowed under the “fair use” provision of copyright law.
- The HTML Code (i.e. page layout) for any page or major portion thereof. (More of my originality)
- Any original graphics unless otherwise stated. (Won’t be much of this type of originality. I’m not an artist.)
Notes:
- The government works presented here are NOT covered by the above statements as they are public domain, except for my arrangement of them.
- Any material on this site that is copyrighted by others is either here by permission or is used under the provisions of fair use.
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