Legacy Tip: Radius Searches

This Quick Tip is also available as a free video.

Have you ever searched the records of a town, only to find nothing about your ancestor? In these situations, good genealogical methodology suggests to search the records of nearby towns. Legacy Family Tree’s Radius Search tool will provide you with a list of localities within a given distance from the original location.

Step 1. To use the Radius Search tool, first you’ll need to make sure that you have installed Legacy’s Geo Location Database. This database is a collection of nearly three million current locations worldwide divided into six regions: Pacific Islands, United States, Africa, Americas (non-USA), Asia, and Europe. Each location includes the name of the city, the county or province, the state, if any, and the country name. Along with this information the latitude and longitude coordinates are also included.

For step-by-step instructions on installing this database, from Legacy, click on the Help menu, then click on Search for Help On. On the Index tab, type in this phrase: Geo Location Database Setup, then click Display. Follow the instructions to complete the setup. You’ll then be able to use the Radius Search tool.

Step 2. To use this tool, click on the Tools menu, then click on Geo Location Database. In the appropriate fields (city, county, state/province, country) type in the name of the known location, then click on the Search button. See the example below:

Step 3. In the example above, Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut is the known location. To find a list of surrounding locations, click on the binoculars button in the far lower right.

Enter the desired mile radius, and click OK. Legacy then searches the Geo Location Database for all locations within the radius. In the example below, there are 18 known locations within 5 miles of Woodstock. Your search can now continue into the records of these towns.

This Quick Tip is also available as a free video.

Comments

[Sharon Perdue]

This is so cool!! I love it!