13 May 2010

Long Island NY: Digital Heritage Mapping, May 23

Digital mapping, with speaker Jay Sage, will be the topic at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Long Island (New York) meeting on Sunday, May 23.

The program begins at 2pm, at the Mid-Island Y-JCC, Plainview. Come early to get help from the JGSLI's expert mavens.

Google Earth -- Google’s high-resolution, three-dimensional model of the Earth -- provides an exciting new way to display one’s family history or to make virtual visits to family sites.

Users can create Google Earth "layers" comprising a collection of geographical markers with associated viewing perspectives and Web-page-like documentation that may include text, photos, video, and audio. Virtual tours can be created that lead one from place to place.

Sage will demonstrate how to utilize Google Earth to document locations anywhere on the globe associated with the history of a family, such as hospitals where relatives were born, their houses, schools, workplaces and cemeteries.

As researchers interview relatives, Google Earth can be used to make a virtual visit to places of their past, and as visual perspective enhances memory.

Jay Sage was co-president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston (2000-2003) and is currently co-editor of its journal, Mass-Pocha. He is president of the non-profit Digital Heritage Mapping, dedicated to virtual preservation and public understanding of cultural heritage sites around the world.

For more information or directions, click here.

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