After mapping out Alfred Thayer’s travels, it is much easier to look at his life with a much broader scope, than if I was just reading his documents in a spreadsheet. While dissecting the documents in the spreadsheet, I can track all the places Thayer lived, but it is still one item at a time. When using a map, labeled with times, I can see the entirety of his life in one picture.

This tool is effective, and gives new perspective. That being said, it could be even more useful with a soldier other than Alfred Thayer. Thayer was born in New York, traveled with his unit during the war, and then lived primarily in two locations, Michigan and Illinois, for the rest of his life. While I would bet that there are soldiers that traveled less, an soldier who did more extensive traveling would be even more suitable for a map tracking their movement.