Sunday, November 24, 2013

Creating an Ancestor's Map: United States & Canada

Here's another idea for a fun activity with kids or grandkids:  Create a map showing where your ancestors lived in the Unites States and Canada.

You can make your map on the Defocus-Blog webpage "Create Your Visited States & Provinces Map".

But instead of making your map for states & provinces you have visited, you can make the map for states & provinces where your ancestors lived!

I made up a legend for my Ancestors Map, using the colors available on the Defocus blog:

Green--more than 4 generations
Blue--3-4 generations
Yellow--1-3 generations
Red--lived for a short time, up to 1 generation
White--never lived there




I have this map posted on Facebook.  Thanks to Heather Wilkinson Rojo and others, who had the idea first! And to Jeremy Nixon, who created the Defocus Blog--what a fun tool!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Betty

© Betty Tartas  2013



Saturday, November 23, 2013

Where Did Your Immigrant Ancestors First Settle?

With Thanksgiving approaching, and thoughts of my Mayflower ancestors lingering in my head, I began to think about how many of my ancestors actually came to New England first, and how many settled elsewhere.

And then I thought: Wouldn't it be cool to have a visual representation or a graph? I looked online and found an easy-to-use website called Create a Graph

This is a graph I made, in about 5 minutes, using  estimated calculations based on my family tree information.



About 50% of my immigrant ancestors settled in New England: Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire & Connecticut

Approximately 35% of my immigrant ancestors settled in Virginia.

About 14% settled in Pennsylvania, New York or Maryland.

And about  1% settled in Nova Scotia, Canada

These are rough estimates, of course, but fairly accurate!

Where did your immigrant ancestors settle?  If you have the information, this would be a fun Thanksgiving day activity to share with your kids or grandkids!


Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Betty

© Betty Tartas  2013