Mapping ancestors

[ZarquonsSandals]

Literally that - I've been researching various family lines for years now, and was wondering if there is any way to use mapping tools to create a customised map (ideally free) to show where the different family lines lived.
My rationale is that a number of them lived in reasonably close proximity to each other and so it is potentially possible to do a 'history walk' taking in as many of their places of residence as I can.

I did start to try to do this with putting pins on google maps and using photoshop but that's really time consuming.

Yes, I want one of these two!

The National Library of Scotland has good mapping tools - maps.nls.uk/ - you can look at modern and historic maps, zoom in and out and if you hit the "draw" button at the bottom, you can add dots, lines, whatever you want and then export as a pdf.

would that be any use?

Google Earth is free and can be used for this purpose. Guide here:

"Google Earth for Genealogy, Part 1: Putting Your Ancestors on the Map | New York Genealogical & Biographical Society" www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/blog/using-google-earth-genealogy-putting-your-ancestors-map

Thanks! I may well try the google one first as that may be slightly easier. Wasn't aware of that at all.