Family Historian User Group

I know this is a much discussed topic and I've read what I've been able to find but...a few questions:

1) Villages in the far north of Scotland tend not to have street names - they are just one long through road with houses on each side. So a full address/place might be 25 Swordale, Point, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland. What would you advise doing....25 is unquestionably part of the address but Swordale is both address and place. I feel that Swordale HAS to be the place...so should I just put "25" in the address??

2) Using Tools>Work with Data>Places (and also Addresses), is it possible to get directly from that list to each of the occurrences so that I can tidy them all up into a common format? Will I have to do that individually, or is a bulk change a possibility?

Many thanks for your time!
William

William,

Dealt with dispassionately, my view would be that, as Swordale is a village, the Address in your example is [Property Number] 25, and the Place is Swordale, ....., just as Swordale House is an address in the village of Swordale.

From the point of view of a Family Historian datafile, or any other database application, what you really need is consistency of data entry, which facilitates good search techniques, understandable query outcomes and good transferability.

Question: How do you normally enter village locations, as addresses or places? If you don't use the same format throughout your database, then you have the potential for a search/query nightmare when you decide that you want/need to know who lived in the village of 'x', as you will have to account for every possible permutation of location entry.

Only Answer (in my opinion) : Pick one method of data entry and make sure you stick to it religiously (even if it may not seem to make total sense).

Mervyn

Hi Mervyn,

thanks for that - I was coming to that conclusion myself although I don't particularly like it. But you're right - consistency is the thing.

And that's why I've asked my 2nd question - because I haven't been consistent. Do I need to go to every individual and put each record right manually, or is there some way of getting a list of every place AND address and then editing the list?

I hope so

William

Hi William

Your second question is something I've had to do recently so I can sympathise. My problem had been due to keeping separate FH files for each surname but then a combined one for importing into TNG, which is when I found I had various versions of the same place which caused fun importing on occasions.

Anyway, although a little tedious, it's not been as bad as manually checking all entries. You mention the Tools>Work with Data>Places menu, what I did was work though this in each file and combine duplicate addresses or amend the spelling of others to standardise them. If you want to see which individual is using a particular place entry - then select the place entry and click records on the right. This then shows who is using the entry. If you want to find out this but also manually edit them, select the place entry and click Where Used. This then will return a list of individuals which can be selected and edited manually.

Personally, I found using the edit/replace facility in Tools>Work with Data>Places the easiest way to resolve inconsistencies.

Hope this helps.

Nicki

2) Using Tools>Work with Data>Places (and also Addresses), is it possible to get directly from that list to each of the occurrences so that I can tidy them all up into a common format? Will I have to do that individually, or is a bulk change a possibility?

In the Place (or Address) list, select the place /address you are interested in and then on the right hand side click Records or Where Used. The first of these will produce a list of the records in which the place is used and double clicking on each record will open its Property box. The second will open the Query window with a results set listing the exact events which use the place. Double clicking on the Place in this result set will open the Property box with the focus on the event in question.

To do bulk changes, use Work with Data>Places and select the place in the list then click Edit or Replace with on the right hand side.

Thanks to you both - I shall give this a shot this afternoon.

William

William,

Oops! I missed the second element of your query, but can't really add to the contributions already made.

My approach is to use 'Work with Places' first and achieve consistency there, 'ignoring' any duplication that I might introduce in the address field. Having achieved the desired result, I then move on to 'Work with Addresses' at a more leisurely pace, weeding out the problems, place by place.

Yes it's tedious, but it can be taken in stages if necessary, and the end result is worthwhile. Anyway, it's raining and miserable in Yorkshire this afternoon, so my gardening will just have to wait!

Mervyn

Also see my post here http://www.fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... 230#p54321 to see what Family Tree Analyser makes of Places and Address fields.

There is no reason why the Place and Address fields cannot contain overlapping location names.
In fact the GEDCOM definition given in glossary:places|> Places and Addresses suggests that is very likely.

Place: "The jurisdictional name of the place where the event took place..."
For the UK, I use the post-1837 Registration District or the pre-1837 Church Parish, or some similar jurisdictional place name, with the three Place columns District/Parish, County, Country.

Address: "The address structure should be formed as it would appear on a mailing label…"
I use the 7 columns: Building Name, Number, Street, District/Village, Town/City, County, Postcode.
I make a special case of London which I enter under County and use Town/City to hold Borough and District/Village to hold local place names between Street and Borough.
The Building Name may be a Church, School, Hospital, Prison, Workplace, or simply a house name.
I try and enter Postcodes even for pre-Postcode Addresses in order to pin-point their location on modern maps & geo-coders.

Thanks again for the clarification - tatewise...that is seriously organised and I'll have to give it some thought!
Anyway, I've got the pleasure tonight of meeting up with a fellow researcher who I suspect is going to help me back into the 1300s - never thought that would happen

William