The Mobile Genealogist

The other day I got an email, I’m sure some would call it Spam, from “Earth Products & Accessories”.    It may have been outright “Spam” or a marketing email which came about because of my installation of Google Earth, but in this case the device advertised did peak my interest.

The email read…

Trackstick II Personal Tracker Tracksticks are tiny GPS location recorders capable of continuously logging their own location histories for extended periods of time. The Trackstick records its own location, time, date, speed, heading and altitude at preset intervals. Traveled routes can be viewed directly in Google Earth. Includes GPX photo stamping feature for adding your favorite photos to you own maps.

The first thing that came to mind was it would be handy to track my location when traipsing about the country taking digital photographs of the old family farms, one room school houses, cemeteries or whatever.    (Comparing the timestamp of the image with the timestamps of the GPS location)    And since it will allow you to attach photos to Google Earth, you could then create a virtual tour of your trip.

If that sounds interesting, more information can be found HERE.

Do you have a Windows Mobile Device with a GPS and want a really interesting application to use with it?  (GPS isn’t actually required for this application, but it can take advantage of one)   Do you like to stargaze but don’t have a handy way to identify what you are looking at?

My Today Screen has a review of iWindows Mobile AstroAnavigator II which looks to be a very nice application and also wins my award for longest application name!

Click HERE to learn more.

Brighthand has a FAQ that discusses how to configure a Bluetooth GPS receiver with Windows Mobile, an exercise that at times can be non-trivial.

Both the FAQ and the comments can be found HERE.

Bernie over at HistoricalTownMaps has a “Location Based Genealogy” weblog that most recently discussed the use of GPS with your genealogy.    There are quite a few interesting articles you might find useful, you can visit his blog HERE.