* How to handle places with multiple names?

[E Wilcock]

Town names changed as they switched from Poland to Germany and back.

To match the source one may need e.g. the city Danzig.
For the FH map button to locate it one needs Gdansk.

Any suggestions for this - Do people duplicate the birth Tag?

[tatewise]

That is the purpose of the Standardized field in the Place record.
With a Place record Property Box open press the F1 key to get Help about its use in auto-geocoding.
For your example, the Place name would include Danzig, Germany and the Standardized field would include Gdańsk, Poland.

[E Wilcock]

I think this will have to wait or even be abandonned.

I put Szczecin in the standardised place box.
But the programme doesnt find it. It seems to be searching on Stettin instead?
I typed the place Szczecin in the search box, and it told me that no such place is found even though I can see it marked on the map. With that correct Polish spelling.

Finally I pasted the co ordinates in by hand and only then, it found the place.

My husband thinks I regularly do something wrong when trying to map places as FH never found the real location of the village in Yorkshire where his own family came from! He thinks I do something that maps the location in the wrong place. I need to go into the record and delete the wrong co ordinates and paste in the correct ones.

I think I should follow a tutorial somewhere? Using the example Project? But thanks for explaining the Standardised Field is where to put the current name. I pressed F1, I have the help and it cant find Edgware!

[tatewise]

The current FH geocoder is not very good a finding place names especially outside the UK and USA.
It certainly will NOT go down to most villages, districts, or streets.
It falls far short of the Google Maps geocoding, but does not cost Calico Pie an arm & a leg in licence fees.

The solution used by many is my Map Life Facts Plugin with appropriate settings, because it does use the Google Maps geocoder, which is allowed for your personal use with a limited number of geocodes per day. It automatically adds all the coordinates to your Place records.

I can talk you through the process when it is convenient.

[dewilkinson]

This is an interesting topic.

For over 25 years we have always tried to record addresses as they were at the time of the event regardless of how commercial websites show them. Middlesex is a good example. Many places were in Middlesex until the 1890s when they became part of the County of London, then in 1965 became part of Greater London. Would it be correct to think that using the Standardised field to show the current name and administrative address would be good practice? Peterborough near to where I live is also a good example, parts have been in Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire at different times and it is now a unitary authority.

My previous software TMG did not have that option and I am still exploring FH and finding it pretty good.

I welcome any thoughts on this.

[tatewise]

Yes, if you review the F1 help I mentioned earlier, that is exactly what Standardized is for, and the Map Life Facts Plugin is entirely compatible with that concept but calls the field Substitute.

See plugins:help:map_life_facts:map_life_facts|> Map Life Facts Plugin and in particular the plugins:help:map_life_facts:the_faq|> Map Life Facts ~ Frequently Asked Questions for How can V6 Place Records be synchronised with Plugin Locations?

One caveat is that only FH Place records can be geocoded, and not Address fields. The Plugin will geocode Address fields but into maps displayed outside FH. So that has led to a debate about what users should put in the Place and Address fields.

[E Wilcock]

I will do what you say Mike. Thank you. That will be great.
But in defence of the FH system outside UK - If I look down my Place Records list, I see to my astonishment that it has put in co-ordinates (not consciously requested) for a couple of obscure villages, one in Germany and one in Poland.
Of course, I may have Googled them while researching, to find where they were and they then appeared on this FH map - I am never sure which maps I am looking at.

[E Wilcock]

Just to say that I downloaded two plug ins to the correct directory.
And the map location works perfectly. I chose an individual at random and it showed both very small places in Germany and then immigration involving three continents.
It is so easy to type in place data and hurry on without having the foggiest idea where the places are.
Thank you Mike and Jane who wrote the plug in.
I sent off a first big report using FH today and thanks to your help am feeling really cheerful.

[jimlad68]

E Wilcock, this topic together with PLACe and ADDRess is a constant topic of discussion, with many options/ solutions. I suggest you do a search on geocoding and wade through them. A good starting point may be Address and Place, yet again (14220)