That’s why Michael introduced the ability to select one town as the “base” point. You can find the latitude and longitude in “Where Once We Walked” or by using the JewishGen Shtetl Seeker. Or, if you are certain that a name will appear in a specific town, search on the name and town, and the coordinates will appear in the search results.
Going hand-in-hand with the base town searches is the ability to limit the search to a certain distance from the town. For example, if you set 80 or 100 miles as a search radius, you can be pretty sure of finding other family members who might have moved to the nearest big town or large city. If you then discover many entries with the surname you’re looking for in another town, use that town as the base for another search.
While the search page has a “Town” field, don’t use it unless you have been to the site before and know exactly what you need. Remember, most families had branches in more than one town or village.
