While trying our best to track down our family heritage and build our tree, one of the biggest obstacles is tracing their movements from one place to another.  It may be nearby or across an ocean.  The obvious question is, "why?"  Then you realize that the bottom line answer is that they were in search of a better life.  Their homeland was horrible or just didn't allow them adequate opportunities. They were running from something. They were forced and eventually freed. Maybe they were just adventurous! In the end, they were in search of new possibilities.  

Tracing the footprints that eventually led to you can be shown in several ways in your family history video.  Part 10 shows one that comes with your software, is easy to use, and easy for your future generations to watch and comprehend.  If you haven't watched it yet, click here.

Today's blog entry is another video in our series.  We'll use our Rotopen feature in Corel VideoStudio to follow our family as heartbreak or growth pushes them to move from one place to another.  Any map will work so even if you've traced your ancestry back to the Dark Ages, you can use a knight in shining armor to show your descendents their journey.
Click here to watch the video Part 10 Making Your Own Family History Video.

As we look for our ancestors, we often find that they moved around.  Part of their story is why.  What makes a person, or a family, leave their home and make a new home elsewhere?  The reasons are as diverse as the people.  You can spend years researching the reasons and the path.  Once you have even a portion of a trail to where each family ended up you’ll want to save it for future generations.

That’s our subject this week.  Maps.  We can trace an exodus, a covered wagon trail, a ship, a train, or even a plane from country to country or county to county.  In our example family, we’ll simply move within just a few states in the U.S. Although we know that the families came from Ireland, Germany and England, we don’t know when or why yet.  But since genealogy research always moves backwards, we need to trace back as far as we can firmly substantiate.  Censuses, passenger ship lists, military papers, directories, rite records, and even gravestone locations can all be clues as we trace back in time and place. 

This is also a great way to explain a battle or campaign.  In our subject family, the father was in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of WWI.  Are there any wars or battles in your family history that affected a relationship or prompted a family to move?  Maybe you need to explain a hero’s path, or follow the Trail of Tears or the building of a railroad or canal. 

Get your maps ready!  There are Public Domain maps on Wikipedia or davidrumsey.com.