genealogy and U.S. maps help

[Jeff Sandys]

I'm trying to write a mapping function for genealogy.
I want to read a gedcom database and plot an icon at
a geographic location based on a user's query.

Can you help me find:

1) A python interface to gedcom?
(gedcom is a well documented linear
file so I can probably do this myself
if an interface is not available)

2) An index of U.S. cities and counties with
their longitude and latitude? This could be
a web site that allows automated queries or a
database.

(This is the hardest part of the problem since
the places in the gedcom database are hand typed
by the user. My thought is to try and guess as
many locations as possible, then let the user
input the rest of the (unknown) locations by
clicking on the displayed map (see below) then
save this hard earned data for reuse, either in
gedcom or as an auxilary dictionary)

3) Graphics of U.S. (country, states and counties)
with longitude and latitude relationships suitable
for tk or wxpython display?

(There are some nice maps available for visio,
I'm not sure if they could be used for my purposes)

Thanks,
Jeff Sandys

 

[William Park]

I'm trying to write a mapping function for genealogy. I want to read
a gedcom database and plot an icon at a geographic location based on a
user's query.

Can you help me find:

1) A python interface to gedcom? (gedcom is a well documented linear
file so I can probably do this myself if an interface is not
available)

2) An index of U.S. cities and counties with their longitude and
latitude? This could be a web site that allows automated queries or a
database.

(This is the hardest part of the problem since the places in the
gedcom database are hand typed by the user. My thought is to try and
guess as many locations as possible, then let the user input the rest
of the (unknown) locations by clicking on the displayed map (see
below) then save this hard earned data for reuse, either in gedcom or
as an auxilary dictionary)

3) Graphics of U.S. (country, states and counties) with longitude and
latitude relationships suitable for tk or wxpython display?

(There are some nice maps available for visio, I'm not sure if they
could be used for my purposes)

I doubt you can do these without caughing up some money.

 

[Skip Montanaro]

Jeff> 2) An index of U.S. cities and counties with their longitude and
Jeff> latitude? This could be a web site that allows automated
Jeff> queries or a database.

Try GNIS:

http://geonames.usgs.gov/

You can query or download geographic data state-by-state.

There's also a Canadian Geonames site:

http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/

Skip

 

[Cameron Laird]

.
.

I doubt you can do these without caughing up some money.

.
.
.
Skip already gave no-cost answers for 2).

Can you repeat 3)? Are you just looking for images of maps of
the US, all its states, and all its counties, or are you saying
you want photographs ("graphics"?) from each jurisdiction? If
the former, yes, fee-free versions of all those maps are avail-
able on the Web. When I've worked on this before, I found it
entertaining to draw my own maps; I had enough data from the Web,
and the Tk canvas is handy enough, that it didn't take long to
program this. I only did it to the state level, but counties
surely are equally feasible. The Tkinter canvas has performance
limits that constrained the resolution I was willing to use ...

 

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Cameron Laird fed this fish to the penguins on Thursday 30 October 2003
16:32 pm:

Can you repeat 3)? Are you just looking for images of maps of
the US, all its states, and all its counties, or are you saying
you want photographs ("graphics"?) from each jurisdiction? If
the former, yes, fee-free versions of all those maps are avail-
able on the Web. When I've worked on this before, I found it
entertaining to draw my own maps; I had enough data from the Web,
and the Tk canvas is handy enough, that it didn't take long to
program this. I only did it to the state level, but counties
surely are equally feasible. The Tkinter canvas has performance
limits that constrained the resolution I was willing to use ...

The maps available for use with WinAPRS might just be usable, once one
figures out the encoding (I believe it is documented, as the maps are
created by Amateur Radio operators). Since the main/original purpose of
APRS is position reporting, the maps have to be related to the GPS
coordinates being transmitted by other APRS users.

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