XPost: soc.genealogy.computing, soc.genealogy.misc, alt.genealogy   
   XPost: england.genealogy.misc   
   From: G6JPG@255soft.uk   
      
   On Sat, 30 Oct 2021 at 08:51:32, knuttle    
   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   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)