XPost: soc.genealogy.computing, soc.genealogy.misc, alt.genealogy
XPost: england.genealogy.misc
From: keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net
On 10/30/2021 12:54 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Oct 2021 09:48:08 +0100, Ian Goddard
> wrote:
>
>> On 29/10/2021 09:07, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>> FamilySearch has been plugging standardised place-names, which is not
>>> a bad idea but has now gone too far -- their software triest to
>>> automatically substitute "standard" place names for non-standard ones,
>>> but in the process it often inserts a place name that is entirely
>>> wrong and misleading, wand will ruin the usefulness of their
>>> collaborative family tree.
>>>
>>
>> FamilySearch have a long history of mangling places. From the errors
>> I've seen it appears that batches of records from multiple places must
>> have been entered without changing the place name on the data entry
>> screen and any QA procedure has failed to trap it.
>
> Yes, indeed. There have been transcrtiption errors, where someone has
> transcribed a parish register and gone on to transcribing another
> parish, without changing the name of the parish on the entry form. It
> is the kind of error where it might be qute easy to do a batch
> correction.
>
> But what I am talking about here is not a human error of a fallible
> transcriber, but a deliberately introduced software error, which would
> be much more difficult to trace and correct.
>
> Here is an example:
>
> Mount Fenning
> England and Wales Census, 1841
> Name: Mount Fenning
> Event Type: Census
> Event Date: 1841
> Event Place: Chichester St Martin, Chichester, Sussex, England, United
> Kingdom
> Event Place (Original): St Martin, Essex, England
> County: Essex
> Parish: St Martin
> Residence Note: Copping'S Buildings
> Sex: Female
> Age: 9
> Age (Original): 9
> Birth Year (Estimated): 1832
> Birthplace: Essex
> Page Number: 12
> Registration Number: HO107
> Piece/Folio: 344/24
> Affiliate Record Type: Institution
> Affiliate Image Identifier:
> GBC/1841/0344/0453&parentid=GBC/1841/0001424136
> Household Role Sex Age Birthplace
> Mount Fenning Female 9 Essex
> Mary Fenning Female 45 Essex
> Mary Fenning Female 25 Essex
> John Fenning Male 20 Essex
> Sarah Fenning Female 16 Essex
> Thomas Fenning Male 13 Essex
>
> When I copy this event to my own family tree, it does not copy the
> original event place, but the spurious Chichester one.
>
> I hope the people at FamilySearch will soon correct this software bug,
> but until they do, people who use FamiloySearch should be warned that
> they need to treat every place name as suspect.
>
> Ancestry.com have long done this kind of thing, but it is new on
> FamilySearch.
>
>
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
in the description part of the location fact. An example: the family
lived in Milan township, and in the Chaberlain community. Since in the
stable community is Milan township, I put that in the location field.
and in the description, Chamberlain. (Today very few people know
Chamberlain existed.)
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.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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