Explore Ancestral Homelands

     I "drove" around Dunseverick, Northern Ireland using Google Earth and got a better understanding about the the general landscape, housing, farm lands, and even a view of the Giant's Causeway. I saw Dunseverick Castle, which also existed during the time that my 3rd Great Grandfather lived there with his family. Dunseverick Castle is pretty much just a pile of rocks now, but I can imagine it to be a place that he and his family visited almost 200 years ago in the early 1800s.

     So many places around the world have had their streets charted by Google. There are aerial views of so many different world locations, as well as street views as well. Pick out an ancestor who lived in a known location, hop onto Google Earth and enter the location information.
     Get a sense of what the terrain, city, and other landmarks may have been like when they lived there. Can you find the street they lived on, and perhaps even the same house they lived in? Explore the neighborhood where they lived. For example, I looked up the home street and home address for a home that my great-grandparents purchased in the late 1800s. It was actually quite fun to compare the old photographs of the home with those currently stored in Google Earth.