There are two ways to enter migration data for display in the HistoryGeo Viewer.  This article covers the textual entry of migration data into the website.  To see how you can click and draw migrations in the Viewer, click here.

Start by signing in at HistoryGeo.com.  Then, at the top right of the screen, you should see some text that says "Logged In As: (your name here)" with three buttons below it that say "My Profile," "My Map Collection," and "Log Out."

Click on the "My Map Collection" button to go to the section of the site dedicated to your maps and content (what we call "Your Map Stuff").

In the Map Collection page, there should be a sidebar to the left that's labelled "Your Map Stuff":

Click on the the "Migrations" link, and you will be taken to a page that lists your migrations. It also allows you to either create new migrations or edit /delete existing ones.

Above the list of your existing migrations is a link that says "Create New."  Click this link to start creating a new migration.

(Note: The "Share With" field is set to only allow private sharing for now, but, eventually, you will be able to share your migrations with other HistoryGeo users)

Once you have given your new migration a meaningful name and short description, click "Create Migration" to start assigning Migration Points to your new Migration.   Migration Points are the dots on the map that make up a Migration path, and each can contain quite a bit of information.  Here's what you should be seeing, now:

Your migration's name and description are displayed above an empty grid that we will start filling with Migration Points.  If you wish to edit your Migration's name or description, you can click the "Edit Migration Info" button.

Let's add our first Migration Point.  Click the "Add New Point" button.

A pop-up window will appear with a series of fields for you to fill in about this point:

Type

A Migration Point can be used to mark several kinds of occurrences, and a point's type is meant to quickly answer, if possible, "What is the significance of this point within the migration you're drawing?"  The current options are: Birth, Death, Marriage, Residence, or Other.

Caption

A brief title for the point.

Description

Depending on the point's type, explain who was born, died, got married, or lived here.  If the point's type is "Other," explain just what this point is here for.

Country, State, County, and Populated Place

Where do you want this point placed?  Once you've selected a State, just start typing in the County field, and it will try and automatically complete the county's name.  With the County filled in, the Populated Places field will do the same thing.  (Note: Right now, the Viewer will only draw points to the county level.)

Year(s)

Depending on the point's type, this could be the year that someone was born, died, or got married, but it could also be a range of years that someone lived in a particular spot.

Source(s)

How do you know what happened here?  Were you told be a relative?  Did you get the information from official documents or correspondence?  This field is where you explain how you know what you know about a particular Migration Point.

Once you've filled in each of these fields to the best of your knowledge, click the "Save Point" button.  Before the window closes, it will tell you where that Migration Point will be drawn in the Viewer.  You can either approve the location or edit the point's data and close the window, or go back and edit the state, county, etc..

You'll notice that your list of Migration Points is no longer empty.  The point you just entered has been added to the list:

Now, let's assume you've added a few more:

In the "Order" column, you'll notice little up and down arrows next to the point's place in the Migration.

These allow you to reorder which points get drawn in what order.  Clicking the up arrow will move the point up in the order so that it will draw earlier.  The down arrow does the opposite: moving the point down in the order so that it appears later in a Migration's path.

On the opposite end of list's columns, you'll see the "Edit" and "Delete" columns.

Click the little pencil icon to open a Migration Point's details for editing.  Click the red "X" icon to delete this Migration Point from the List.

Once you've added all the points for your migration, click the "Save Migration" button.  After it tells you that the Migration has been saved, you may launch the HistoryGeo Viewer and view it.