"WHERE WE LIVE"

This page was last updated: Jan. 15, 2022

I'm often asked where I live.  We live in Georgia (the state -- not the country),
abbreviated "GA", one of the original 13 colonies from which the United States
of America was created in 1776.

When I tell people who live in other states that we live in GA, they usually think
of Atlanta which is not very close.

When I tell people in other countries, they sometimes have difficulty relating to
our American definitions of the "deep south."  I usually just say, "southeastern U.S.A."

It occured to me that describing my state as divided into quadrants is the best
description.  We live where the lines cross.  Here's what it looks like on a map
(see below):

A fellow family history researcher (to whom I wish I was related) lives in
England.  His ancestor is from Suffolk on England's east coast.  I see
similarities between Suffolk and the state of Georgia since both are near
the east coast of their country.

However, Suffolk is a county and Georgia is a state so geographical size
isn't the same.  Here's the relative size of Georgia (in blue) which is comparibly
larger than Suffolk (in green, east of Cambridge).
(according to thetruesize.com).



This doesn't say much about the populaton density, though.  Not only is the
entire state of Georgia less densely populated than most anywhere in the UK
but we live in a rural area where farms are more common.

Average farm size in both the State of Georgia and the UK are about the same,
relatively small, but, for the entire state of Georgia there are less than 200 people
per square mile.  Subtract the 4-1/2 million people living in the City of Atlanta
and the population density of rural Georgia drops dramatically.

Here's a graphic example (from pudding.cool).  The green spikes represent the
number of people in that area:

Contrast this with the population density of Southern England which has nearly
28 million people living in 1,200 sq. mi.  That's 23,288 per square mile. 

Even today -- 400 years later -- these comparisons offer at least one clear
reason why our English ancestors may have left the Old World for the new. 

These wide open spaces aren't for everyone, though.  I remember how I felt
when my family left rural Tuscaloosa County, Alabama to move here to Georgia. 
I, for one thing, was glad that more grocery stores were closer.

When we first moved to my children's childhood home near Tuscaloosa, my
wife and I had to drive nearly 20 miles to our favorite grocery.  Tiny stores with
a poor selection, an old stock, and high prices were our only other option.

We enjoy rural living but there's a trade off.  The little town where we now live
has many conveniences not available in our former home.  I can't imagine what
it would be like to live in Southern England.  Prices would be very high and land
scarce but conveniences must be plenty.

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