Family Historian User Group

Where there are multiples with different capitalisations you pick them up as Similarity. But singletons with dodgy capitalisation don't get reported.

Yes, if your data has both those Place name cases then the plugin reports the exception as explained in the Help.
However, there is no way from a solitary example that it can detect any form of spelling or case error.
How could the plugin possibly know what is the correct form without a comprehensive international gazetteer?

For example, how should the plugin deal with these real Place names if only one variant exists in the data?
Wilsford cum Lake, Salisbury
Stow cum Quy, Cambridge
Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester
Marton Cum Grafton, York

Should cum be capitalised or not? Should the name be hyphenated or not? The plugin cannot possibly know!

I've even found examples where there is inconsistent spelling for the same place according to Google Maps:
Elloughton-cum-Brough, Yorkshire
Elloughton Cum Brough Town Council
Elloughton cum Brough Scout Hut

I'm not sure what you mean by "FH thinks they are two different places!"
If you have entered them both then the case difference will create two Place records, but then the plugin will report them as Similarity exceptions.

tatewise wrote: ↑

25 Mar 2023 21:19

For example, how should the plugin deal with these real Place names if only one variant exists in the data?
Wilsford cum Lake, Salisbury
Stow cum Quy, Cambridge
Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester
Marton Cum Grafton, York

Should cum be capitalised or not? Should the name be hyphenated or not? The plugin cannot possibly know!

You already report spurious cases where it suspects a possible exception. For example I have a Variance report Nottingham ~ Cottingham. You have settings which adjust the sensitivity of those checks. So I thought there was some scope for checking that words begin with capitals with what is probably not a very long list of common exceptions (cum, of, in, le, the, upon, by, on ...) with the option to disable. Probably you'd ignore all capitals words, but catch things like the easy error of holding the shift key a fraction long and ending up with words starting with two capitals. We've had plugins that do similar checks for individuals names.

tatewise wrote: ↑

25 Mar 2023 21:19

I've even found examples where there is inconsistent spelling for the same place according to Google Maps:
Elloughton-cum-Brough, Yorkshire
Elloughton Cum Brough Town Council
Elloughton cum Brough Scout Hut

Surely these variants are addresses not places?

tatewise wrote: ↑

25 Mar 2023 21:19

I'm not sure what you mean by "FH thinks they are two different places!"
If you have entered them both then the case difference will create two Place records, but then the plugin will report them as Similarity exceptions.

I know. I did comment above that you report places only differing by capitalisation.

All the examples of exceptions you are quoting are based on comparing two or more Place record entries, which is the underpinning strategy of the plugin. The difficulty is identifying solitary Place records that differ from some 'rule(s)'.

I suspect you are thinking of the Clean up Surname Capitalisation plugin which capitalises the 1st letter of every 'word' and converts all other letters to lowercase except for 4 special cases, which can only be extended by the user editing the plugin.

The place name exceptions you quoted are not all consistent, e.g. cum or Cum, upon or Upon or -upon-, etc...
Also, they are focused on UK names whereas the plugin has to be international.

Some users include addresses in the Place field and ignore the Address field, so my examples for Elloughton-cum-Brough are perfectly reasonable, but I suspect I could find others that are similarly inconsistent Place names.

Maybe your suggestion is the basis for another plugin.

tatewise wrote: ↑

25 Mar 2023 22:57

I suspect you are thinking of the Clean up Surname Capitalisation plugin which capitalises the 1st letter of every 'word' and converts all other letters to lowercase except for 4 special cases, which can only be extended by the user editing the plugin.

I was.

tatewise wrote: ↑

25 Mar 2023 22:57

Maybe your suggestion is the basis for another plugin.

I did look for a plugin to do this checking first, and then when I couldn't find one looked at what this one does. Hence the enquiry if this was something that could be added.