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Locations (was: Re: FamilySearch introducing errors)

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On Sat, 30 Oct 2021 at 08:51:32, knuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> 
wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>On 10/30/2021 12:54 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
[]
>>  Ancestry.com have long done this kind of thing, but it is new on
>> FamilySearch.

I don't know if they've fixed it (I haven't renewed my Ancestry sub for 
a while, though will do eventually), but there was - maybe still is - a 
problem on Ancestry, such that the search result list shows a place 
different to that the individual record is. For example, Bedlington, 
Northumberland (England) - if you did a search (for a person's name, for 
example), you might find the resulting list showed some hits in a 
Bedlington somewhere in the US - but if you clicked on one of the 
entries in the list to see the individual record, you could see that 
they were in fact the England one. (But unless you _knew_ about this 
wrinkle, you'd not look at those list entries, if you were looking for 
England hits.)
>>
>This has been a problem for years, and is why I do not merge data into 
>my database.  For several generation, my family come from one county in 
>Indiana.  As the county changed from wild forest to a fairly large city 
>things changed.  Many times a family is listed in one small community 
>in one census and another in the next, but they are still on the farm 
>they were on in the previous census.
>
>Many years ago I standardized my location, to the smallest stable 
>location.  In this county it is townships.  I  then note the community

I standardised for place, county, country for UK, and place, 
state/province, country for north America. For anyone else near enough 
to starting your data that you can change it, don't do what I did: north 
America (at least US, not sure about Canada) really needs four levels - 
place, county, state, country. (Though the sizes are a LOT smaller [than 
_most_ states], UK counties are very roughly analogous to US states, and 
we don't really _have_ a level below county - not that anyone outside 
local government administration knows about, anyway.)

[I'd rather switch to top-down - country, state/province/county, place - 
because then location lists would come in a sensible order (all the 
England places together, ditto all the US ones) rather than listing New 
Jersey, New York, and New Zealand next to each other - but can't, 
because in the software I use (Brother's Keeper) the autocomplete 
function for locations (F8) currently is only starts-with rather than 
contains, so I'd have to scroll through all the England places.]
[]
>In my opinion, the location is so that I can go to any current map and 
>locate where the family lived. In this way when in the area I can 
>easily travel to that location.   If I use the name of community that 
>no longer exist, I may never find the family farm.  The historical 
>location is put in the description, or a note if the information on the 
>historical location is to large for the description.

Yours sounds like a very good reason to use modern names. (The only snag 
I can think of being you might not always know what it is, but some 
research can probably tell you.) I've not been consistent, but I've 
_tended_ to use the name current at the event in question (meaning a 
person might be born and die in the same place but it's shown as two). 
Your idea of putting that (original location name) in the comment is a 
good one: maybe I'll do a global change sometime. That tuit shortage is 
growing ..

In UK, it's not so much placenames disappearing - it does happen, but 
they usually remain [and Google Maps can find them], if only as a suburb 
of somewhere else - it's more county boundaries moving, and new counties 
appearing [1974 was the big change]. For example, a lot of my own 
ancestry was in either Northumberland or [County, not city] Durham, the 
border roughly following the river Tyne; but from 1974, places from 
somewhat west of Newcastle all the way to the sea, for a swath some way 
either side of the Tyne, are now in "Tyne & Wear".

Actually, that's one slight snag with your "use the modern name" policy 
- when there's a major border move, and/or completely new county, what 
was the modern name ceases to be so, so global changes are needed. 
Probably less of a problem in the US as I don't think state boundaries 
change much. (I don't know about US counties.)
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep
enough.  What do you want, an adorable pancreas?" - Jean Kerr

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Thread

FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-29 10:07 +0200
  Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2021-10-29 09:48 +0100
    Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-30 06:54 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> - 2021-10-30 08:38 +0100
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-31 20:32 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors knuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> - 2021-10-30 08:51 -0400
        Locations (was: Re: FamilySearch introducing errors) "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2021-10-30 15:38 +0100
          Re: Locations (was: Re: FamilySearch introducing errors) knuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> - 2021-10-30 18:06 -0400
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2021-10-30 16:02 +0100
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2021-10-30 16:23 +0100
          Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-31 20:34 +0200
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-31 20:26 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2021-10-31 17:25 +0000
    Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2022-02-14 23:23 +0000
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Daniel65 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2022-02-15 22:42 +1100
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2022-02-16 07:45 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors cecilia <myths@ic24.net> - 2022-02-16 09:34 +0000
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> - 2022-02-22 14:15 -0600
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2022-02-23 15:45 +0000
          Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> - 2022-02-24 17:34 -0600

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