Family Historian User Group

Probably a limitation of the GedCom standard.

Philadelphia, PA, is a large city. And if I want to be really detailed, I can (and have) geocode Philadelphia, PA, with latitude and longitude. 39°57′N 75°10′W per Wikipedia. And that will represent something somewhere within its 134 square miles.

GGGgrandpa Hollinshead married his bride in Christ Church, in Philadelphia. (His parents were Quakers, her parents were Quakers, their children were Quakers, what were these two doing in Christ Church?) Anyway, Christ Church is a landmark in Philadelphia. I've got a street address, and a lat long that will remain in place regardless of how the streets meandered around it over the centuries. But I can't assign a Lat Long to an address. I can't attach a media file to an address. (Only a place.)

I can assign a Place to a the marriage event. (Philadelphia.)

PLACE_STRUCTURE: =
n PLAC <PLACE_VALUE> {1:1}
+1 FORM <PLACE_HIERARCHY> {0:1}
+1 <<SOURCE_CITATION>> {0:M}
+1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>> {0:M}

I can assign an Address to the marriage event. (Christ Church, and go so far as to tack on all the redundant information already provided by the Place record (replacing county with zip code.)

ADDRESS_STRUCTURE: =
n ADDR <ADDRESS_LINE> {0:1}
+1 CONT <ADDRESS_LINE> {0:M}
+1 ADR1 <ADDRESS_LINE1> {0:1}
+1 ADR2 <ADDRESS_LINE2> {0:1}
+1 CITY <ADDRESS_CITY> {0:1}
+1 STAE <ADDRESS_STATE> {0:1}
+1 POST <ADDRESS_POSTAL_CODE> {0:1}
+1 CTRY <ADDRESS_COUNTRY> {0:1}
n PHON <PHONE_NUMBER> {0:3}

If I've got a picture, wouldn't it be more appropriately linked to an address rather than a place?

And the geo-coding of the address vice place?

Given Addresses are exact locations, and Places only drill down to village level.

And Christ Church is very photogenic. Philadelphia? Not so much.

This has been discussed before at length. In how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers it refers to glossary:places|> Places and Addresses and that lists more than a dozen threads on the subject with various workarounds.

It is largely a limitation of GEDCOM.

One solution is to add the church pictue Media directly to the Marriage Event and then its appears in Reports near that event.

The Lat/Long could be added to the Address somewhere or to a labelled Note.

FH only geocodes Places because the service it uses only knows about towns & cities, NOT streets and buildings.

The Map Life Facts Plugin geocodes both Place and Address fields using Google Maps API and offers various ways to include the Lat/Long data and maps in your Project.

Is there any global method of adding a media item to an event, for instance if you want to add a photo of a church to all marriage or baptism events that occurred in that church.
The events can easily be found by searching on the church name in address but adding the same media to each of those events is, as far as I can see, to be done individually.
Any ideas?
Peter

Essentially you are correct Pete, but there are a couple of alternatives.

(1) Use Place Records
Amongst the dozen or so threads listed in the KB article, some users have moved the details of buildings such as a Church from the Address to the Place field. This allows photos of that building to be linked to the Media tab of the Place record in a single 'global' operation. But I cannot remember whether those photos then appear in Reports or not.

The Rearrange Address and Place Parts Plugin helps with the task of adding a column part to the Place field, and may also be able to selectively migrate buildings from Address to Place.

(2) Use Source Citations
You could create a Source record just for the Church details and add its photo to the Media tab.
Then each Event involving the Church could cite that Source.
After the first Citation is created, it is easier to Copy & Paste that Citation multiple times than link the photo to each Event.

how_to:create_locations_database_details|> Create a Locations Database of Place & Address Details goes into this option in more detail.