Tips and Tricks

Getting Started

Download the PGSNYS Getting Started Research Guide to start you on your journey into the past.

Viewing an Old Neighborhood with a Simple Click!

Genealogists often wish to visit their ancestral homes and neighborhoods. Not a local resident?  Then try these options to wander the old Polish neighborhoods from the comfort of your computer chair.  (Notice that each site gives a different type of view and perspective of the streets and houses.)


Windows Live Search Maps
http://maps.live.com/?mkt=en-us

Type in the address of the house you wish to view.  When the image comes up, click on Birdseye View.  This will zoom the image in and give you the option to view the house from the front, back or side.  You can also click on the + symbol one more time for an even closer view.

This site gives you the perspective of actually flying over the rooftops of the neighborhood.  You can then move the cursor over the map and see the adjoining streets and landscape.  (You will see many empty lots where the houses have been demolished.)

Google – Maps
http://maps.google.com

Type in your address, and when the thumbnail photo appears, click, “Street View.”  This site gives a completely different view.  You appear to be standing at street-level, right in front of the house.  You can then view a circular scan of the street.  Move the cursor onto the street pavement and a line and directional arrows appear.  Click the arrows and you will move up or down the street in either direction.

Keep in mind that the age of the photos may be very recent or several years old.  Of course, you can view the Buffalo neighborhoods, or any locations you choose to visit, including ancestral villages in Poland.

Broadway Fillmore Alive
http://broadwayfillmorealive.org

This site offers a survey conducted in 2004 of historic resources within the City of Buffalo.

When the page appears, click on Annotated List of Properties.  There are 97 pages arranged alphabetically with photos of the houses.  Additional data on the house is variable, but may include the year or approximate time built, name of the builder or architect, for whom the house was built, date of any alterations or additions made to the house, and a short description of the architectural style.

Want more detail?  Move down to the Inventory section and see several pages on each house with a larger photo, a fuller description of the architectural style, and a replication of the Sanborn Map that illustrates the position of the house on the street map.  For the churches and commercial buildings, profiles of the architect and neighborhood history are quite detailed.

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