Columnists

Genealogy Corner… RootsMapper

Issue 48.14

Now that FamilySearch Family Tree has been out a while, there are a lot of add on products that work with it. You can find a list of the certified products at https://familysearch.org/products. One of those is RootsMapper. It is a fun program that allows you to easily visualize the migration patterns of your ancestors.

You can adjust RootsMapper from the original four generations which includes yourself, because if you are like me, that is all United States. But, when you expand to six generations or more, then it starts getting more interesting. It brings up a world map and puts little numbered circles or pins with the number of generations to get from you to the place your ancestor came from. It pulls the information from FamilySearch Family Tree so first you have to get your family loaded there and then make the link to RootsMapper and allow them to access your information.

It draws pink circles for the mothers and blue circles for the fathers. Then you can hover your mouse or pointer over the little number to see who the 5th generation blue guy is parked over Scotland. You can use the map options to turn on and off the lines going from one generation to the next, and you can take the circles or pins off the map. Clicking Countries changes the colors of the countries because the default is for RootsMapper to change the color of a country depending on how many ancestors you have from there.

One interesting feature is the Country Statistics. You can select the number of generations to check and it lets you know how many ancestors are from United States vs. United Kingdom, Canada, Wales, Germany, British Colonial America, and so forth. You can manually expand individuals back to 32 generations.

It is easy to get started. Just visit the website: https://rootsmapper.com/ and login with your FamilySearch credentials and a basic map will automatically generate. From there you can explore additional options and plot multiple additional generations in seconds. It is free and it works with several different internet browsers.

For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com (435) 628-4900.

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