We are very happy to provide you a new enhancement to the search experience on American Ancestors. Now you have the ability to link directly to Google Maps using the location text from a record. The example above shows the Record Detail page where the location text is highlighted in blue and followed by a push-pin icon; indicating that you can click on the location to display the location in Google Maps.
This new capability is also available for locations on the Transcript display page, as shown in the example below.
The Google Maps link is provided for all validated locations. You can see the Google Maps page from the previous examples in the image below. A valid location is defined as having a known modern name for the city, county, region/state, and country components of the location. This means that the location will properly be understood and displayed by Google Maps. In cases where the location is not a modern location, or has some sort of error, the location text will still display on the form, but the link to the map option and icon will not be available.
Over time we will review and update locations to expand the number of records that can use this capability.
We hope you find this new capability helpful for your research. Please send us any feedback on this enhancement, or new suggestions to improve the search experience on American Ancestors, via email to webmaster@nehgs.org.