Planning and Itinerary Selections


Planning and Itinerary Selection: The planning for this trip has taken well over a year. I am very fortunate to have a great software program that ties in with Familysearch.com. This is the genealogy website of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City Utah. Having access to this database enhances the software, and gives me access to millions of files to help in my search for ancestors. It also allows me access to sources for the information I am looking for, to help provide evidence that I am on the right track. Researcher notes are also provided, giving me a chance to see what pitfalls other researchers have found.

The program is called Rootsmagic (https://www.rootsmagic.com/ ), and it is currently on version 9. I started using it when it was version 4, and have had the opportunity to become a beta tester for more recent versions of the software. When a new version comes out, the Rootsmagic folks let you purchase the newer version for half the price, if you own a previous version. The software allows you to search by names and places. This is how my search for locations started. My first search pulled more than 500 locations within England.

As I started selecting places to visit, I decided to lump them into several different categories. The first was anything religion related. Churches, Abbeys, Monasteries, Priories, and cemeteries were the first category. These are depicted on my map by a green pin. Castles and Manor houses were identified with a blue pin. Towns were plotted using red pins, and lodging locations were given white pins. Finally, there were some historical sites and places of interest that I wanted to see while over there, and I lumped all of these together with a yellow pin. These include Stonehenge, Battlefields, English Heritage Trust locations, National Cemeteries from World War I and II, and even Ebenezer Scrooge’s final resting place (https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/1984-carol-scrooge-grave-shrewsbury.html#:~:text=Clive%20Donner's%201984%20production%20of,of%20St%20Chad's%20 ).

I needed the pins on the map, so that I could determine how long I needed to stay at each location. When I was in the military, we had an operation that was called a hub and spoke operation. This consisted of finding a central location (a hub) to stage out of, and doing day trips in different directions each day (spokes). The more sites to visit, the longer to stay in one location.

A lot of hotels and lodging locations offer discounts for longer stays. If I could centralize my locations, I may be able to reduce costs. If my “Hub” was near a larger city, then I would have more lodging choices to search to keep costs down as well.  

Locations that contained a lot of my ancestors took precedence over spots where I only had a single relative. If a place seemed easier to find, or more interesting, I chose it. Lots of places that were active hundreds of years ago are now no longer available to be seen. Many castles and manor houses where my ancestors were from fell into disrepair, and were demolished. I am sure some of the places I visit will have nothing to show because of this, but this trip is an adventure, and the destination isn’t always the best part of a trip.

On the next post I will share my itinerary and lodging locations. If time allows, I would like to post reviews of the places I visit, eat at, and stay, but that is for a later day. 


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