wherearemcgrogans.html

Making the US map was a multi-step process. First we downloaded all zipcode center points (latitude/longitude) from a US Government website and manually retrieved the zipcodes for all McGrogans known to Switchboard.com. (As sharp-eyed McGrogans notice that they are not on the zipcode list and send us their zipcodes via email, we include them. Thank you!!)

Next we wrote a program that read in the zipcode file and located the zipcode extrema for 100 latitude and longitude stripes. These values provided the USA outline. The program then read all the McGrogan zipcodes and converted them to lat/long using the zipcode data. Finally, the program tallied the McGrogans by states. The resultant file was fed to xgraph and then converted into gif format using the gimp. (Simple, eh what?)

There are many more USA McGrogans than shown here. For example, our sons aren't known to Switchboard, because they only have cellphones. Thus, most young people aren't tallied, even though they will be in one of the boxes on the map. McGrogans with unlisted phone numbers may also be invisible. (This map is designed to be illustrative, not exhaustive!) On the other hand, I was listed several times and one McGrogan was listed four times. In each case, having multiple phone numbers caused the problem. (I reduced these situations manually to one count each.)

The country numbers reflect whitepage scans for the countries shown. I searched a number of European countries and found no McGrogans other than in the UK. (Thanks to Robert McGrogan, we now have links to both the Republic of Ireland phone directory, www.eircom.ie, and Northern Ireland. Oddly, however, only a few McGrogans are shown.) Quite a number of the Australian counts are for families, so there are many more McGrogans there as well. (Thank you, Adam, for emailing your coordinates so that we could start a map for Australia.)

If you live in a country that isn't listed as having McGrogans, please tell me how many you know of. Especially helpful would be data adequate to produce country maps. This would include latitude/longitude data for each McGrogan. (I can dream, can't I?)

Hi to the following McGrogans who have written us: Frank in Scotland, Ryan & Kelly in New York, Terence in Lancashire (UK), Barney in Calgary, Canada, Andy in Medicine Hat, James in Toronto, Canada, Frances in Ottawa, Canada, another Frances in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Robert in the Republic of Ireland, Bernard & Robert, both in the Belfast area of Northern Ireland, John in Spotsylvania, Virginia, Tina in South Bend, Indiana, James in Whitby-Ontario, Canada, Margaret Mary in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Adam near Brisbane, Australia, Dominic from Coolock on the north side of Dublin, Celeste in Ottawa, Illinois, Matthew Green from Philadelphia, Charles in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Brynn in Lagos, Nigeria, Daniel in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, Carly in Birmingham, England (with relatives in Luton), Kerry in Auckland, New Zealand, Ryan in Frankfort, New York, Margaret in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, and, of course, my brother Jim and his wife in Alameda, California. Greetings to you all. (We've now heard from about 10% of all the McGrogans!!!)

(We have enough data to produce some sort of world map with points for each McGrogan on it. That should be a bit more professional looking (!) and will enable us to show the world-wide spread of McGrogans. By the way, Carly in Birmingham tells me that there are 157 McGrogans on Facebook, if you're interested in meeting some compatriots. I certainly owe Carly a map of the UK with her family marked on it!)

Where Are All Those McGrogans?