Historical Mission Boundaries Map

I believe I am aware that mission boundaries are viewable on https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps - what I would like to know is whether historical mission boundaries could be available ( I know that would probably be a bunch of work)? I guess it would require a historical layer for different time periods or something - might not be too easy... Is it proper then to refer to the current mission name for the area most like the formerly named mission in FamilySearch?
It also isn't too easy to see the mission areas labeled - it appears you have to do a combination of selecting the mission layer in the settings and view multiple missions and select the star and click the map to have the mission name appear.

jaocon wrote:Is it proper then to refer to the current mission name for the area most like the formerly named mission in FamilySearch?

I am not sure exactly what you are trying to do. But with the Church News archives, including its no longer published Almanac, it is not difficult to figure out the former names of missions in a given area, especially if you are going back a ways in time.

It would take some detective work, although if there are not too many you are researching, it would be a fun project and should not take too much time.

Hope I can be clear what I am after (but it's not available). I am trying to refer to a historical mission (which obviously had different map boundaries than the current ones). I know the name of the mission - Cumorah Mission - i believe it's mission home was in Rochester - but I don't know it's map boundaries during the timeframe it was a mission. When I attach that mission to a relation in FamilySearch - as a custom event since Mission isn't a currently defined event - it would be nice if FamilySearch already had the mission names/boundaries to attach to that event - obviously that would take some approval and work to create those historical mission boundary maps. Essentially the 'Historical Missions map project' would be a time lapse of mission boundaries as they were created and changed over time. Apparently - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/cal ... p?lang=eng
used to have pdfs of mission boundaries - I don't know if it included historical missions no longer in existence.
Hopefully that clears up what I am wondering about - in the meantime I'll just have to refer to New York Syracuse Mission I guess (the closest boundaries I guess).

Good idea -- I'd be interested in it too.
Because sometimes I read in an old obituary that says the person served in "the eastern states mission". But to pinpoint that on an ancestor's FamilySearch profile as a 2-year place of residence (thus showing up as a pin-point on his timeline map), I would need to know where the mission home was at that time.

Okay. I understand now. Of course, one of the challenges is that someone who served in the Eastern States Mission, for example, may have been at the mission home once or twice in two and a half or three years, but served the most time in a totally different state.

But I believe it is an excellent idea.

Given the lack of specificity, I think the best solution is to simply enter "The Eastern States Mission" as the location, but for the standardized location (Only really required if it's a birth/marriage/death place), use 'United States". It takes some playing games with the system, but I'm pretty sure you can get that result. Perhaps it's easier if you input "The Eastern States Mission, United States".

To make this topic even more complex - once the mission boundary map was created it would be nice to enter locations corresponding to mission journal entries. So you could end up with timeline journal entries and a 'path' where the missionary travelled during their mission. I guess all that could be done in a google map - but isn't that sort of what FamilySearch is doing?

So I have found:
http://www.mission.net/cgi-bin/mission_ ... n=show_all
The project would need a list to begin...

I haven't used it except to the extent that it's created from sources, but each individual has a "residence" location with a date attached. I'd think you'd could put that in there.

Good point Russell - i guess they would be residing in the mission ... but that still doesn't help me with the mission boundaries map.
I also found MIssionary Database for prior to 1860 Elders:
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org ... d?lang=eng
It would be cool if FamilySearch would go ahead and link that database with the Tree - I don't know maybe they already have...

and a document that apparently has what I need at CHL - but currently the CHL is closed and apparently I would not have access to it anyway
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org ... iew=browse

Mission supervisor records: Eastern American missions, 1965-1968
Call Number: CR 313 20
Terms Governing Access: Closed to research.
Rights: Copyright Not Evaluated.
Creation Date(s): 1965-1968
Language: eng
Physical Description: 5 boxes
Containers Path: CR 313 20/b0002/f0013

I guess what I am saying with all this is - it would be nice if FamilySearch Tree had a predefined 'Mission' event that had the Mission boundary map and I could go in and add locations served and images of his mission journal to - I am sure they will get around to it eventually

Thinking about it - I guess the differences between a Residence event and a predefined 'mission' event as I am thinking above - is the ability to add multiple Residences and have those grouped in a containing 'mission' event and be able to attach Memories to that event. I am not sure if Stories limitation of 10 photos would mean there would be a limit ... I guess that's why I haven't thought to create a mission Story - because of this limit. I guess mission journal entries could be Stories though. Hmm, maybe that's the difference between a document and a story - still with a 15mb limit though... Maybe I'll soon figure out what I'm supposed to do to correctly record a mission in the Tree.

Perhaps a mission can generally be represented in the Tree by:
1. an event over a period of time in a particular geographical area (boundaries)
2. Travelling/multiple residences within the mission
3. Multiple stories in the areas of residence with media/documents attached

So I'm guessing the current/correct way to record a mission in the Tree would involve these several areas - only there isn't currently a way to add residences within a custom mission event - that I know of? Theoretically a printing of all events/memories for a mission would reconstruct the missionary journal. So I guess breaking a document into resident event timeframes would work - but I'd still like to see a custom event/geographical container.

This is a great discussion, but will likely never be seen by anyone with authority over the FamilySearch software. I recommend you post your recommendations as feedback from within FamilySearch. You could put a link to this thread in the feedback to give them a place to review the discussions.

I went through the regular 'Feedback' link and found out that has since closed and now gave feedback through the new Community site:

https://community.familysearch.org/s/fe ... 04zhdluSAA

I don't think FamilySearch is intended to replace a full biography or journal of a person; events are more high-level than granular. I don't think I'd indicate different areas on a mission in FamilySearch any more than I'd indicate which middle school the person attended, which years they served as the ward organist, or which dates they spoke in sacrament meeting. If a biography did exist outside of FamilySearch, you could link to it as a source.

sbradshaw wrote:I don't think FamilySearch is intended to replace a full biography or journal of a person; events are more high-level than granular. I don't think I'd indicate different areas on a mission in FamilySearch any more than I'd indicate which middle school the person attended, which years they served as the ward organist, or which dates they spoke in sacrament meeting. If a biography did exist outside of FamilySearch, you could link to it as a source.

Interesting. well you're entitled... you are probably right though - FamilySearch is probably looking for some other entity to fill that niche.