Family Historian User Group

In the “Tools > Work with Data > Places > Edit” dialogue there is a data entry field for “Standardized Version” of the place name. It’s my understanding that this field is provided to ensure that an accurate geolocation occurs when the historical place name differs from the present-day, standardized place name. My question is this. If I manually enter Latitude & Longitude values for each place, is there any need to also enter a value for the "Standardized Version" of the place name? It seems redundant to me, so I’m not planning on entering standardized place name values unless told otherwise.

Some background: I’m in the process of switching from RM8 to FH7 and want to clean up all my place name records as part of the process. I’m adopting the strategy in FH7 of 6-Part place names as follows: “description | street address | municipality | county | state | country”. I will manually enter Lat/Long values for each place record. This will allow me to geolocate places to the street address level. In RM I was able to do this using the Place Details dialogue. If this approach has any flaws, I’d appreciate feedback on this issue also. TIA

You don't need them, but I find them useful especially if I have several places that resolve to the same Standardised Place Name (for example, where the name of a place has changed repeatedly over time). It's easier to spot identical names than identical sequences of numbers.

Welcome to the FHUG.

In Tools > Preferences > Map Window tick Block Refresh for Non-tentative Geocodes so that the lat/long values do not get accidentally updated by auto-geocoding.

tatewise wrote: ↑

20 Jun 2022 11:56

Welcome to the FHUG.

In Tools > Preferences > Map Window tick Block Refresh for Non-tentative Geocodes so that the lat/long values do not get accidentally updated by auto-geocoding.

Thanks. I didn't know this. I have a feeling that auto-updating could have totally messed up my place records. Wouldn't it be good for me to also uncheck the Auto-Geocoding box? I plan to enter all Lat/Long values manually.

Yes, if you plan to do all geocoding manually it's safest to uncheck the Enable Auto-Geocoding option. The alternative is to leave it enabled but mark Auto-geocodes as Tentative. I sometimes find the auto-coding a useful staring point, even though it is sometimes way out. If the auto-coding is marked on the map but you want to move the location slightly you can do this by clicking the Enable Marker Dragging button at the right hand end of the Map window toolbar. This automatically updates the latitude and longitude and makes the coding non-tentative.

In case you didn't know, you can also manually set the exact location in the map window by clicking on any Place record in the List Pane on the left, and dragging it onto the Map Viewer. The Place record will be set at the location where you drop it. This updates the latitude and longitude in the Place record and is very quick.

If I manually enter Latitude & Longitude values for each place, is there any need to also enter a value for the "Standardized Version" of the place name? It seems redundant to me, so I’m not planning on entering standardized place name values unless told otherwise.

Mardon - Just a comment on your post, which I just came across. I use the same process you describe. That is, I rely on geo-coordinates rather than Standardized Place Names. Sorting a list numerically identifies a place that may have changed names over time---assuming lat and long are entered correctly for each.