Professor Rosenblum had the great idea of generating a shared map of the migration routes of our families. We’re going to do this using google maps. It’s not too hard, and the reward will be great: a beautiful mess of migration paths ending in NYC. It will look something like this sample map I made, but with many more paths. Notice how you can use the icon in the top corner to view the details of the separate layers that detail each journey:

Here’s how to add your family journey to our maps.

1. Open the Migration map. Check your email for an email from me (Bronwyn DL) inviting you to edit the Seminar 2 Migration Map. I’ll be sending this email to the email address you used to sign up for the course site. Click on the link to open the map.

2. Find your map layer. Each of you will add to your own layer. Unfortunately custom google maps only allows for ten layers per map, so we will create two maps with ten layers each – one for each of the twenty students in our class. Find your name under the list of map layers and select the check box beside it. Deselect all other check boxes. As long as you are editing the map, make sure you’re only editing your own layer.

3. Add place markers to your layer. To add a point to the map, find the “add marker” icon below the map search bar. Search for the place you’d like to mark, click “add marker”, and then click the point. A box will pop up asking you to label it. Label it with the name of the place, and provide a brief description of where it fits in to your family’s migration journey.

For example, in the sample map above, I added a marker called Lviv, Ukraine. When you click on it, you can see a description that indicates how that place fits into my family story. You may choose to add a photo, or add more or less information to the description. For example, if you know when your ancestors immigrated, you could include that information. It’s up to you!

You may add as many markers as you’d like. You may wish to go back as far as your parents or your grandparents. The idea is that you are marking the points where your ancestors lived in the time before they arrived in New York City.

For your final destination in New York City, add your marker as close to where you live as possible (no need to provide an exact address, but choose a nearby intersection). This will give us a sense not only of where people have come from, but also how we are spread out throughout the city in the present.

4. Join the points on your map using lines. This is meant to illustrate the journeys your ancestors took. This part of the task can be a little bit finnicky and will require a bit of adjustment and patience on your part.

First, zoom out to a scale that allows you to see the points on the map you want to join. Click on the “Draw a line” icon, beside the “add marker” icon. Choose “add line or shape”. Click the point where you want the line to start, then double-click the point you want the line to end. A box will show up asking you to label the line – tell us whose journey this line represents, and tell us something about that journey, like when it took place.

You’ll need to zoom in to the start and end points of the lines to drag and drop them to the exact points where you want them.

5. Edit the colors and shapes of your markers and lines to make them unique. This will distinguish them from the other journeys on the same map. You can do this in the legend part of the map when you hover over the place marker and line labels and click on the paint can that appears.

6. Observe! Re-select the other student’s layers to observe how the paths criss-cross. Visit the course site to view the other map here.