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[rworthington]

Colleagues,

New to GPS, but not to cemetery hunting, I am finding that web listings with Long/Lat listed. That's great, but my GPS doesn't understand anything but a street address. I know there is an issue with street addresses with a number of cemeteries that I have walked might be an issue, but having a street address with Zip would be most helpful.

Does anyone else have this problem? If so, what is your work around?

Thank you,

Russ

[Ron]

Rural cemeteries are difficult to find under any circumstance--but I've found the GPS invaluable for this purpose.  I set as a waypoint the coordinates of the cemetery; finding them either on statewide cemetery lists that are often available, or by locating the cemetery with Google Earth, Google Maps or similar website.

Recently I had one very old cemetery in Indiana that I could not find.  One day I did a Google search, and found the name and road of a farmer whose land the cemetery was on. As it turned out, my fourth great grandfather owned this same land--purchased in 1814.

For the uninitiated, cemeteries are great places to spend an hour or two; and you will be surprised what information you can learn if you observe and think out of the box.

Happy sleuthing!

[tryeland]

Each GPS is different, but if you have the co-ordinates you can always use Google Earth earth.google.com to find the location and then find the nearest intersection which will allow you to use your GPS to get close.

Google Earth is a great tool that way.

[rworthington]

tryeland,

Thank you for that hint. I will check it out.

Russ

[ghostfromthepastwv]

GPS and cemeteries are becoming a specialty of mine! I am such a map geek. 
There are a few other options for you.

Steve Morse has a web page that converts street address to/from lat/long.
http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php

Find the lat/long for any US street address.
http://geocoder.us/

Another place to get cemetery information is from the USGS, GNIS.
http://geonames.usgs.gov/
From there you can map the points. Clicking on an option (like google maps) on the right hand side will give you street names and lat/long coordinates.

You can also use geodata.gov to find data or make a map (among many other tasks).
http://gos2.geodata.gov/wps/portal/gos

Another mapping service is:
http://nationalatlas.gov/


Hope this helps.
Jennifer

[jgr]

GPS and cemeteries are becoming a specialty of mine!

If I may ask, what GPS are you using for this? I'm thinking about trying to find one that works both for the car and for genealogy.

[celem]

Sounds like you are using an in-vehicle GPS. What you need for this task is a handheld GPS, such as uesd by hikers, i.e., http://tinyurl.com/2x2cce

[Betty]

These URLs are especially helpful to me.  I have dozens of addresses for ancestors and have had no way to find the latitude and longitude for them other than going there.  Thanks for posting it.

[theKiwi]

I have recently got a Garmin GPS - a 255W Car Navigator, but you can use it to find a lat/long as follows...

Make sure you have the Garmin Browser plug in installed. Then go to http://maps.google.com/ and enter the coordinates there to get the map.

Then with the GPS connected to the computer by USB cable, click on the pin on the "Send" link on the top right of the Google map and in the window that opens, GPS should show up on the left side along with eMail and phone.

Click on the GPS tab there and you can send that location to the Garmin where it will be saved as a Favourite for you to later navigate to.

It doesn't matter if you started out entering a street address into Google or a lat/long - the end result is the same in that you can send it to your Garmin as a favourite place and then navigate to it with the GPS.

Roger

[colinc]

Cemetery GPS information can often times be found on http://www.findagrave.com.