* Addresses
Addresses
I have recently been standardising the entry of addresses in my database, and following other suggestions from here, the solution I have adopted is currently to use four fields:
1. House or building name
2. Street or Road name
3. Sub-district or Locality
4. Post Code
This works well except where I have both a house name and number. Should I concatenate these, or add a further field? Or even worse, what if I have, say, a Flat number, building name and street address that includes a building number. Admittedly these type of addresses are in a small minority, but I would be interested to hear what others do to record addresses with these types of issues.
1. House or building name
2. Street or Road name
3. Sub-district or Locality
4. Post Code
This works well except where I have both a house name and number. Should I concatenate these, or add a further field? Or even worse, what if I have, say, a Flat number, building name and street address that includes a building number. Admittedly these type of addresses are in a small minority, but I would be interested to hear what others do to record addresses with these types of issues.
- PeterR
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Re: Addresses
There is a lot of information and advice via this link: glossary:places|> Places and Addresses.
Peter Richmond (researching Richmond, Bulman, Martin, Driscoll, Baxter, Hall, Dales, Tyrer)
- tatewise
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Re: Addresses
It seems whatever cunning column arrangement we design, an address crops up to break it.
For flat numbers & buildings, I suggest using such as Flat 99 Highrise in the 1st column or even Highrise Flat 99
For house numbers, some users suggest appending it to the street/road name such as High Street No.23 which has the advantage that auto-complete and sorting work better with a leading street/road name than a number.
For flat numbers & buildings, I suggest using such as Flat 99 Highrise in the 1st column or even Highrise Flat 99
For house numbers, some users suggest appending it to the street/road name such as High Street No.23 which has the advantage that auto-complete and sorting work better with a leading street/road name than a number.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
Re: Addresses
And I haven't even got to "At sea" yet!
I only posted this after reviewing the KB articles, which, if I'm honest, didn't offer a great deal of help. So, I pondered a long time over house numbers, but having the street/road name on its own is useful when it comes to finding people who live in the same street. Thanks for your suggestion re Flats, Mike, that makes sense to me.
I would like to add here that two little utilities have helped me enormously in sorting out my addresses. The first is FTAnalyzer, which gets a mention now and again, but proved instrumental in spotting the 12 or so misspellings of England in my addresses, as well as numerous other mistakes . I'm now ploughing through all the other errors it has found (and there's an awful lot of them ) and then will be following through some of it's research suggestions. It's at V8 now; I had stopped using it when it had issues with the date of the 1939 register, but that's now well and truly fixed, and I'm now finding once again a truly useful tool.
The second is Notepad ++
I realise I will probably get a degree of flak from some quarters for mentioning this, but Notepad++ is blindingly fast at Find and Replace, and does not suffer some of the issues that I've had with FH in the past, especially when you need to find and replace strings where there are leading or trailing spaces. All the usual caveats apply - like taking a backup copy of the .ged file beforehand - but I achieved an awful lot of adress re-formatting in minutes with this useful little program that would have taken me hours in FH or days using a rather more well-known word processor .
I only posted this after reviewing the KB articles, which, if I'm honest, didn't offer a great deal of help. So, I pondered a long time over house numbers, but having the street/road name on its own is useful when it comes to finding people who live in the same street. Thanks for your suggestion re Flats, Mike, that makes sense to me.
I couldn't agree more.It seems whatever cunning column arrangement we design, an address crops up to break it.
I would like to add here that two little utilities have helped me enormously in sorting out my addresses. The first is FTAnalyzer, which gets a mention now and again, but proved instrumental in spotting the 12 or so misspellings of England in my addresses, as well as numerous other mistakes . I'm now ploughing through all the other errors it has found (and there's an awful lot of them ) and then will be following through some of it's research suggestions. It's at V8 now; I had stopped using it when it had issues with the date of the 1939 register, but that's now well and truly fixed, and I'm now finding once again a truly useful tool.
The second is Notepad ++
I realise I will probably get a degree of flak from some quarters for mentioning this, but Notepad++ is blindingly fast at Find and Replace, and does not suffer some of the issues that I've had with FH in the past, especially when you need to find and replace strings where there are leading or trailing spaces. All the usual caveats apply - like taking a backup copy of the .ged file beforehand - but I achieved an awful lot of adress re-formatting in minutes with this useful little program that would have taken me hours in FH or days using a rather more well-known word processor .
- tatewise
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Re: Addresses
Yes, FTAnalyzer has a good reputation.
You are applying Notpad++ to the GEDCOM file so as you say backups are important.
Although the automatic Snapshot files should suffice.
The Search and Replace plugin will find & replace leading &/or trailing spaces, and can narrow the search to specific fields.
You are applying Notpad++ to the GEDCOM file so as you say backups are important.
Although the automatic Snapshot files should suffice.
The Search and Replace plugin will find & replace leading &/or trailing spaces, and can narrow the search to specific fields.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
Re: Addresses
I am puzzled by the choice of Postcode as the final field.
Postcodes have only been around in the UK for the last 60 years, what if you encounter an address that existed previous to that date.
You also make no mention of Town, City, County or Country, is all your research in a small area with no need for those fields?
Postcodes have only been around in the UK for the last 60 years, what if you encounter an address that existed previous to that date.
You also make no mention of Town, City, County or Country, is all your research in a small area with no need for those fields?
- LornaCraig
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Re: Addresses
If those are already in the Place field there is no need to repeat them in the Address field.You also make no mention of Town, City, County or Country.....
Lorna
Re: Addresses
Well I started doing it like that then encountered a problem.
I record church names in the "Address" section for baptism, marriages, burials etc. When I found I had the same name church in more than one village I couldn't tell them apart in the address list so started adding village, county etc. to the extra fields.
Similarly with methodist/baptist chapels, private cemeteries in the USA and some UK street names.
I think a lot depends on the scope of your research and one needs to adapt but I did feel the need to repeat some detail in the Address fields .
I record church names in the "Address" section for baptism, marriages, burials etc. When I found I had the same name church in more than one village I couldn't tell them apart in the address list so started adding village, county etc. to the extra fields.
Similarly with methodist/baptist chapels, private cemeteries in the USA and some UK street names.
I think a lot depends on the scope of your research and one needs to adapt but I did feel the need to repeat some detail in the Address fields .
Re: Addresses
You seem to think that Addresses exist in isolation, and just by looking at an address would give you what you want! e.g. St Stephens is just a name, be it a Church, or Hospital or even Road. It is not until you give it context by linking it to a Place that the name gets a real meaning.
When I record a baptism, marriage or burial, the first thing that comes to my mind is where did it occur i.e Place. Once I have that, my secondary concern is in which church, chapel etc. did the event happen.
If you wished to see who else used that church, use a query not the address list. The latter just gives a list of similarly named addresses, and has little or no other practical use, except to ensure consistency in your naming of addresses.
When I record a baptism, marriage or burial, the first thing that comes to my mind is where did it occur i.e Place. Once I have that, my secondary concern is in which church, chapel etc. did the event happen.
If you wished to see who else used that church, use a query not the address list. The latter just gives a list of similarly named addresses, and has little or no other practical use, except to ensure consistency in your naming of addresses.
Mike Loney
Website http://www.loney.tribalpages.com
http://www.mickloney.tribalpages.com
Website http://www.loney.tribalpages.com
http://www.mickloney.tribalpages.com
- tatewise
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Re: Addresses
The link to glossary:places|> Places and Addresses provided earlier by Peter explains how to handle replicated Church & Cemetery names and resolve that problem by adding some place details in privacy square brackets.
That lets you use the Address list and also hide the redundant place details in Reports, etc.
That lets you use the Address list and also hide the redundant place details in Reports, etc.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
Re: Addresses
In answer to Mike Loney's comment about using a query to find who used a church, I am not denying that is possible but it is also very easy to use the "Where Used" button on the Address window.
That creates a list of connections to that address that can be narrowed down further by sorting on the "Context Description" column. I have used that to isolate all burials at a particular church and saved the results to a named list.
I think this discussion shows there are many ways to achieve the same result and no right or wrong way, just the method that works best for you and your data.
That creates a list of connections to that address that can be narrowed down further by sorting on the "Context Description" column. I have used that to isolate all burials at a particular church and saved the results to a named list.
I think this discussion shows there are many ways to achieve the same result and no right or wrong way, just the method that works best for you and your data.
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Re: Addresses
Like others here, I use the Address to record church / cemetery / street names, etc but EVERY address record I create always has the parish or town included in the square privacy brackets.
Brent Tapscott ~ researching the Tapscott and Wallace family history
Tapscott & Wallace family tree
Tapscott & Wallace family tree
Re: Addresses
Yes, it is very easy, but if you’re looking for People using Christ Church, you end up with a list of people from every Christ Church, no matter what town it is in. So, unless you start duplicating data by adding identifying items to your church address, where used will not give you the answer you’re after!
Using a simple query, you can at least restrict your results to the particular Christ Church you are interested in. I.e Christ Church, in Southwark.
Mike Loney
Website http://www.loney.tribalpages.com
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Website http://www.loney.tribalpages.com
http://www.mickloney.tribalpages.com
- jimlad68
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Re: Addresses
Age old problem, one I did earlier, and earlier:
The last entry on this post has some links and queries.
Place List (15376)
I store my PLACes in Highest order first with strict comma separation e.g.
England, , Greater Manchester, Bolton, Westhoughton:Chequerbent, Brancker Street, 51
England, , Lincolnshire, Lincoln
England, , North Yorkshire, Richmondshire, Leyburn, Market Place, , Bolton Arms, DL8 5BW
USA, New York, New York, Manhattan, , 10th Avenue, 1000, St Luke's; Roosevelt Hospital
In consequence my places sort 'out of the box' even street numbers; easy peasy.
I should add it can create problems if external compatibility is required, but Mike's Plugin Rearrange Address and Place Parts soon sorts that out.
It's like many sorting problems; e.g. date, if you use the ISO date of yyyymmdd, sorting is easy, if you use UK ddmmyyyy or even worse the USA mmddyyyy it is a nightmare. So, spend time up front designing your data structure to save time and confusion later.
The last entry on this post has some links and queries.
Place List (15376)
I store my PLACes in Highest order first with strict comma separation e.g.
England, , Greater Manchester, Bolton, Westhoughton:Chequerbent, Brancker Street, 51
England, , Lincolnshire, Lincoln
England, , North Yorkshire, Richmondshire, Leyburn, Market Place, , Bolton Arms, DL8 5BW
USA, New York, New York, Manhattan, , 10th Avenue, 1000, St Luke's; Roosevelt Hospital
In consequence my places sort 'out of the box' even street numbers; easy peasy.
I should add it can create problems if external compatibility is required, but Mike's Plugin Rearrange Address and Place Parts soon sorts that out.
It's like many sorting problems; e.g. date, if you use the ISO date of yyyymmdd, sorting is easy, if you use UK ddmmyyyy or even worse the USA mmddyyyy it is a nightmare. So, spend time up front designing your data structure to save time and confusion later.
Jim Orrell - researching: see - but probably out of date https://gw.geneanet.org/jimlad68
Re: Addresses
Jim,
Thats’ fine if all you want is automatic sorting, but what about Autocomplete?
Quite a bit of typing needed before you get to place or address you want
Thats’ fine if all you want is automatic sorting, but what about Autocomplete?
Quite a bit of typing needed before you get to place or address you want
Mike Loney
Website http://www.loney.tribalpages.com
http://www.mickloney.tribalpages.com
Website http://www.loney.tribalpages.com
http://www.mickloney.tribalpages.com
- jimlad68
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Re: Addresses
"but what about Autocomplete?"
I use mostly copy/paste from the Places tab or elsewhere (sometimes in a separate window). TMG had a good feature of keeping (I think) the last 15 entries in in the copy/paste log. To replicate that I also use "Arsclip" similar to "Ditto"
I use mostly copy/paste from the Places tab or elsewhere (sometimes in a separate window). TMG had a good feature of keeping (I think) the last 15 entries in in the copy/paste log. To replicate that I also use "Arsclip" similar to "Ditto"
Jim Orrell - researching: see - but probably out of date https://gw.geneanet.org/jimlad68
- AdrianBruce
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Re: Addresses
Yeah - as an aside, that's why I rebel against what my elders and betters do for place-names, with their "empty columns" and leading commas. I can never get the hang of how many commas to stick in the middle and where the spaces go - get that wrong and autocomplete doesn't kick in at all. No matter which direction you assemble the place-name...
Adrian
Re: Addresses
There's some interesting thoughts here.
The solution I have adopted currently is to use Place and Address as I would if addressing a letter - as recommended elsewhere. Place I therefore define as Village/Town/City, County, Country and Address a house number/name, street, location/region/district, postal code. As I habitually follow house numbers by a comma when addressing letters by hand, adding the extra comma at the front of an address is not, for me, an issue. The multiplicity of occurrences of identical street or church names in different places is, again for me, not a significant problem as they are (a) relatively few and (b) because I usually use both Place and Address together when doing any kind of analysis.
My only thought now is whether a postal code relates more to a Place than an Address, and whether moving the postal code to a fourth column in Place would better refine any geocoding.
The solution I have adopted currently is to use Place and Address as I would if addressing a letter - as recommended elsewhere. Place I therefore define as Village/Town/City, County, Country and Address a house number/name, street, location/region/district, postal code. As I habitually follow house numbers by a comma when addressing letters by hand, adding the extra comma at the front of an address is not, for me, an issue. The multiplicity of occurrences of identical street or church names in different places is, again for me, not a significant problem as they are (a) relatively few and (b) because I usually use both Place and Address together when doing any kind of analysis.
My only thought now is whether a postal code relates more to a Place than an Address, and whether moving the postal code to a fourth column in Place would better refine any geocoding.
- tatewise
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Re: Addresses
If you are going to move postcode to assist geocoding then put it in the Place record Standardized field.
There it gets used for geocoding in the Map Window but does not compromise the 'original' Place name that usually would not have a postcode and would look odd in Diagrams and Reports. That is the purpose of Standardized.
Whichever option you choose, it is advisable to edit the Place records rather than Place fields in Facts.
If you do the latter then it is highly likely that new empty Place records will get created leaving behind the old Place records without any links but with Lat/Longitude values, linked Media, Notes, etc, that you may have created.
The Help page for Property Box: Main Tab for Place Records says:
There it gets used for geocoding in the Map Window but does not compromise the 'original' Place name that usually would not have a postcode and would look odd in Diagrams and Reports. That is the purpose of Standardized.
Whichever option you choose, it is advisable to edit the Place records rather than Place fields in Facts.
If you do the latter then it is highly likely that new empty Place records will get created leaving behind the old Place records without any links but with Lat/Longitude values, linked Media, Notes, etc, that you may have created.
The Help page for Property Box: Main Tab for Place Records says:
Standardized
Auto-geocoding (see the MapWindow to learn more about geocoding) is normally based on the Place field. However, if the Standardized field is not blank, geocoding will be based on it instead. Some historical names may not be recognised, or may be incorrectly geocoded. In this situation, you can either simply specify the correct latitude and longitude yourself; or you can supply a modern, standardized name which will be correctly geocoded.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
Re: Addresses
The drawback with having House Number, Street Name when working with Addresses, is that all houses with same number are listed together, not exactly useful. If you instead use Street Name , House number the Streets are listed together, making it easier to spot similar addresses as well as aiding Autocomplete to fill in street Address.
As for Postcodes, they comprise two parts, the first part (Outgoing part) identifies an Area and is used at originating sorting office to steer the item to correct detination Sorting Office (i,e Place) the second Part (Incoming Part) is then used by destination sorting office to steer the item to the correct Address. So strictly speaking, the Postcode covers both Place and Address
Mike Loney
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