Tuesday's Tip: Online Gazetteer at Fallingrain.com

I have discovered a new favorite website.  While cleaning out notes that I’ve been saving from a family history workshop, I decided to investigate a few items that had stars next to them.  Am I the only one who saves these wonderful tidbits of information, marked with stars, highlighted or circled in my notes?  Finally, after the notes are stacked away for a while, it’s time to sort things again.  I find wonderful resources…they really could have been used earlier, but at least I do get to them sometime.  Oh well, I’m sorting now.  And, I’ve decided that I’ll pass along my rediscoveries as they come to the top of the pile!

My tip to share today is www.fallingrain.com.  Whether you feel like exploring your ancestral origins or  your next vacation in the Virgin Islands, this is a fun place to look.
You’ll find GPS locations, maps, Google links, nearby cities and towns and Wikipedia information, and more, for any location you choose.  The homepage is a worldwide selection of links, from Aruba to Germany and Swaziland to Vietnam.  My first click was on Germany, of course. Then I was presented with all the regions of the country as well as thousands of alphabetical choices, where I can pick an individual family’s town of origin.   I’ve been going to Bergeshovede, Bevergern and Riesenbeck, within Land Nordrhein-Westfalen - looking at the proximity of these ancestral towns and gathering Wikipedia information. 
I’m thinking there are all kinds of assists here for my family history book that’s in the works.  Hope you enjoy this Tuesday Tip.