proper entry of locations when names change
SHARON Zingery
What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
United States of America.
Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
Thanks, Sharon
Sharon Zingery
Mediator
szin...@sbcglobal.net
773.262.7699
singhals
> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> United States of America.
>
> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>
First off, did you check the list's archive on this? (g) It would
save us all an awful lot of time and emotional upheaval if you would
do that.
Because, bottom line, "proper" is a lot more subjective than it
ought to be.
In your example, for instance, you're absolutely right, we weren't
the USA in 1720. However. You can't leave it blank; if you put
"North American British Colony" you're still wrong in Va in 1720 and
most people won't have a clue; if you put in UK or GB you're wrong.
USA has the arguable value of being recognizable.
County names -- your choice; either way half the people will
disagree with you. It was easier when we hand-wrote charts (g); you
could put "Frederick County Virginia (now Berkeley County, WVa)" in
one place and a ditto in the next 6 lines; now, each individual has
his own computer record where ditto marks don't work so well, and
when printed out "Frederick Co., Virginia, USA (now Berkeley Co.,
WV, USA" takes up a fair amount of ink and eye-ball space.
(Especially if you're using the LDS databases where they now prefer
"United States" to USA because of historical Union of South Africa
and other places.)
One argument for using the county name as it is today is that it
makes it easier for others to find it. Using that logic ISTM would
sooner or later result in entering a URL for the on-line version of
the record, not the name of the locale. If that's the choice you
make, could you phrase it as "using the modern county name"? (g)
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
ne...@jecarter.us
> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> United States of America.
>
> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>
I prefer using the original location name, with notes about any
changes. My wife has ancestors who were in different counties in
two or three census reports altough the were in the same physical
location the entire time.
My thouhgts: If you want to ensure that someone else can find a
specific family in 1840, you need the 1840 place name. If you want
to locate the same family in 1850, you need the 1850 place name.
John
bob gillis
On 7/13/2010 10:40 AM, SHARON Zingery wrote:
> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> United States of America.
Since most of my people have events in the USA I do not enter USA
for the country, I leave it blank
For all other countries I enter the name like Canada but do not
print it.
> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> may have changed names.
The generally accepted method is to enter the name of the town or
county as it was at the time of the event.
bob gillis
bob gillis <robert...@verizon.net>
D. Stussy
Unless there's a strong historical reason to use the old name (e.g.
"Salem Village" vs. Danvers), I use the name that is most likely to
guide the person to the proper location. With respect to Colonial
America, I use USA because that's where one will find the place
today, plus the name remains consistent for both pre- and post-1776
usages. I have not had any issues with counties being split, but I
do use West Virgina for that part of Virginia even before the Civil
War, because that's where the place lies today. For Germany, I
always try to include the province, but some locations may have
multiple countries (e.g. Berlin in Brandenburg is sometimes
identified as simply Germany, and other times identifed as "Prussia
(Germany)."
The most important thing: Based on the name used, can one find it
on today's map of the world?
"D. Stussy" <spam+ne...@bde-arc.ampr.org>
J. Hugh Sullivan
> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> United States of America.
>
> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>
I don't show USA - I do show foreign countries.
Showing Virginia would at least enable people living today to
determine the location in all probability. And people from 1720 are
probably not checking things like that anymore.
If anyone disagrees with the method maybe they would divulge the
authorized way to do it - if there is one.
I understand this is a bit of a smart aleck reply, but when you
can't win, you do what you wish.
Hugh
Ea...@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan)
Steve Hayes
I'm inconsistent about this.
In my lineage-linked programs I try to use the names of places at
the time of the event, but in other programs where I store raw data
for sorting and researching, I try to go from the largest unit to
the smallest, and so use Germany (or GER) even before Germany was
unified, and RSA for South Africa (by the way, the abbreviation USA
was never used for the Union of South Africa -- it was always "the
Union", which later became "the Republic" in 1961).
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
singhals
bob gillis wrote:
>
> On 7/13/2010 10:40 AM, SHARON Zingery wrote:
>
> > 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> > United States of America.
>
> for the country, I leave it blank
>
> For all other countries I enter the name like Canada but do not
> print it.
>
>
> > the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> > may have changed names.
>
Beware the anachronism, though. I just discovered myself caught in
one of those with noooobody to blame but myself. :(
Several years back, I found a published genealogy that intersected
with one of my lines. When what I had personally researched in
original records was in that publication, it matched perfectly. I
felt it was therefore safe to copy info I didn't have -- such as "He
died in Yolo, Co."
I remember wondering what he was doing in Colorado, but hey, he was
a husband on a cadet line, and I didn't have all that much info on
his wife, so on the they've been right before premise, I entered it.
Later, trying to find his widow in Colorado on the 1920, I was
bombing out six ways from Sunday. So, I backed up to her parents
and then to her grandparents who were in California. Ummmm, er,
didja know California has a Yolo County? And there the family was
in 1910 and 1920, big as life.
I should've remembered, Co or CO wasn't a standard of identity for
Colorado until the 1960s -- decades after the book was published!
And of course it's vaguely reassuring that editorial help must've
been hard to come by in 1929, too, otherwise someone would have
caught the , that shouldn't've been.
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
Ian Goddard
> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> United States of America.
>
> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>
I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
Gramps has a Place entity type. A Place has a name, Long & Lat refs
and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate Locations. A
Location is essentially an address (including phone number - not too
many places had phones in 1720!) plus church parish. If some
element of the address were to change - in your example country -
you could enter one of the variants as the main Location with the
others as Alternates.
This only needs to be set up once as it's simply linked to the
relevant events. What's more I have a database set aside to hold
nothing but places. I can export this and import it into other
databases so that all my databases share a common gazetteer.
If a working database acquires an event with a place not in the main
gazetteer I can enter all the required data and then export a copy
of that database and import it into the gazetteer. This,
admittedly, is a bit of a faff as I have to remove everything but
places before importing into the gazetteer. The Gramps export
format is a zipped XML with a non-standard filename suffix so I have
to change the name, unzip, edit the XML to remove all the unwanted
elements, rezip and rename before importing. As Gramps has a UUID
as a hidden primary key. This means that when the file is
reimported back into the gazetteer (or a revised gazetteer
reimported back into a working database) Gramps recognises that
duplicate records need to be merged.
Now for the grumps.
First it would be easier if all the working databases could
reference the gazetteer directly instead of having to have copies.
Second, the address which forms the bulk of the Location entity
appears to be derived from what I take to be modern US postal
addresses in that it assumes everyone lives in a city. For my own
purposes I use the City component to hold the township.
Third, the components of the Location don't all change together.
For instance my first entry (alphabetically) is a farm called Acres.
Historically that was in Austonley township, West Riding of
Yorkshire (WRY), England, Almondbury parish. In the C19th the civil
and ecclesiastical organisation of the area changed as that the
whole of Austonley found itself in the new parish of Holmbridge.
This could be dealt with by setting up an Alternate Location with
the new parish but with the remainder as in the original version.
However to do this for all the places in Austonley would involve
re-entering an awful lot of identical text. It would be much
simpler to have the capacity for multiple parishes for the one
Location.
Fourth the Location structure does not contain a date range. In the
example given this would need to show that the parish was Almondbury
until 1848 (from memory) and Holmbridge from 1848 to present. It
would also need to show the county as WRY until 1974 & West
Yorkshire thereafter.
Fifth it makes no provision for the various civil administration
hierarchies in which Austonley found itself.
Both the ecclesiastical and civil administrative associations are
genealogically significant as they determined where events were
registered.
Sixth there is no provision in the place name itself for alternative
spellings. Acres doesn't present any problems but nearby Coldwell
is frequently Cawell or even Carell.
In short, to handle places properly one really needs to be able to
allocate the place to a series of hierarchies, each of which might
change over time. I doubt if any genealogical application attempts
to handle this adequately.
--
Ian
The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang
at austonley org uk
Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
singhals
>
> Unless there's a strong historical reason to use the old name (e.g.
> "Salem Village" vs. Danvers), I use the name that is most likely to
> guide the person to the proper location. With respect to Colonial
> America, I use USA because that's where one will find the place
> today, plus the name remains consistent for both pre- and post-1776
> usages. I have not had any issues with counties being split, but I
> do use West Virgina for that part of Virginia even before the Civil
> War, because that's where the place lies today. For Germany, I
> always try to include the province, but some locations may have
> multiple countries (e.g. Berlin in Brandenburg is sometimes
> identified as simply Germany, and other times identifed as "Prussia
> (Germany)."
>
> The most important thing: Based on the name used, can one find it
> on today's map of the world?
>
> "D. Stussy"<spam+ne...@bde-arc.ampr.org>
With VA/WV, which one is used to refer to pre-1861 events in the
1880 and 1900 census records for WV, or indeed in the vital records
or obits, is an IMPORTANT clue.
The same is true in a different time period and to a somewhat lesser
extent for modern DE/MD.
Try not to outsmart yourself on those. (g)
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
singhals
Ian Goddard wrote:
>> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
>> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
>> United States of America.
>>
>> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
>> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
>> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>>
>> SHARON Zingery
>
> I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
> Gramps has a Place entity type. A Place has a name, Long& Lat refs
You can get slightly different lat/lons from different devices. Do I
use your device's numbers or the numbers from one of the ones I
have?
> and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate Locations. A
> Location is essentially an address (including phone number - not too
> many places had phones in 1720!) plus church parish. If some
> element of the address were to change - in your example country -
> you could enter one of the variants as the main Location with the
> others as Alternates.
>
> This only needs to be set up once as it's simply linked to the
> relevant events. What's more I have a database set aside to hold
> nothing but places. I can export this and import it into other
> databases so that all my databases share a common gazetteer.
>
> If a working database acquires an event with a place not in the main
> gazetteer I can enter all the required data and then export a copy
> of that database and import it into the gazetteer. This,
> admittedly, is a bit of a faff as I have to remove everything but
> places before importing into the gazetteer. The Gramps export
> format is a zipped XML with a non-standard filename suffix so I have
> to change the name, unzip, edit the XML to remove all the unwanted
> elements, rezip and rename before importing. As Gramps has a UUID
> as a hidden primary key. This means that when the file is
> reimported back into the gazetteer (or a revised gazetteer
> reimported back into a working database) Gramps recognises that
> duplicate records need to be merged.
Ummm, when you export that to a narrative report similar to the
Register or Henry reports -- doesn't all that detail repeated for
each person use up an awful lot of reader-patience/tolerance?
> Now for the grumps.
>
> First it would be easier if all the working databases could
> reference the gazetteer directly instead of having to have copies.
>
> Second, the address which forms the bulk of the Location entity
> appears to be derived from what I take to be modern US postal
> addresses in that it assumes everyone lives in a city. For my own
> purposes I use the City component to hold the township.
>
> Third, the components of the Location don't all change together.
> For instance my first entry (alphabetically) is a farm called Acres.
> Historically that was in Austonley township, West Riding of
> Yorkshire (WRY), England, Almondbury parish. In the C19th the civil
> and ecclesiastical organisation of the area changed as that the
> whole of Austonley found itself in the new parish of Holmbridge.
> This could be dealt with by setting up an Alternate Location with
> the new parish but with the remainder as in the original version.
> However to do this for all the places in Austonley would involve
> re-entering an awful lot of identical text. It would be much
> simpler to have the capacity for multiple parishes for the one
> Location.
>
> Fourth the Location structure does not contain a date range. In the
> example given this would need to show that the parish was Almondbury
> until 1848 (from memory) and Holmbridge from 1848 to present. It
> would also need to show the county as WRY until 1974& West
> Yorkshire thereafter.
>
> Fifth it makes no provision for the various civil administration
> hierarchies in which Austonley found itself.
>
> Both the ecclesiastical and civil administrative associations are
> genealogically significant as they determined where events were
> registered.
>
> Sixth there is no provision in the place name itself for alternative
> spellings. Acres doesn't present any problems but nearby Coldwell
> is frequently Cawell or even Carell.
>
> In short, to handle places properly one really needs to be able to
> allocate the place to a series of hierarchies, each of which might
> change over time. I doubt if any genealogical application attempts
> to handle this adequately.
It MAY be possible that researchers outside the US need that level
of detail. I'd doubt many beneficiaries of their efforts would care
about it, though.
Here in the US, each of us is living on a spot of land covered by
the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, and the LDS canon
divisions. Not belonging to any of those groups, I have no clue
which parish-level subdivision my house is in according to them.
Meanwhile, there is a tax district, a municipal level, and a school
district. The electric power company has us in grid D-15, the water
company puts us in their grid 67-E, and the gas company has us in
AH-45.
NONE of those bits of info is likely to be useful 20 years from now,
let alone 50 or 100.
Having any of that in a sentence that starts out, "Carl was born at
7:05 am EDT on Sunday 1 August, in Gregory Hines School district
(city tax district) Pepco D-15, WSSC67-E, WGL AH-45, Fox Haven
subdivision, South Dry Prong, Shilong Dist, Dusty County, Wherebego,
United States ..." seems like TMI, not to say overkill. Why toss in
that Gregory Hines used to be Bill Bailey Section, the tax district
used to be rural then was settled, and then urban, and is now city,
or that Fox Have subdivision used to be Old MacDonald Farm, which
was part of the Bladen Tract ...
You could wipe out a few thousand hectares of good forest like that,
just producing the electricity to display it all.
I can understand the research value of KNOWING all that (up to a
point) but surely it doesn't actually need to be displayed every
time you see Great-Grandpa's birth date and place.
Just askin' ...
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
SHARON Zingery
> > What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
> > 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
> > United States of America.
> >
> > Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> > the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> > may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
> >
>>War, because that's where the place lies today. For Germany, I
always try to include the province, but some locations may have
multiple countries (e.g. Berlin in Brandenburg is sometimes
identified as simply Germany, and other times identifed as "Prussia
(Germany)."
>>The most important thing: Based on the name used, can one find it
on today's map of the world?
>>"D. Stussy" spam+ne...@bde-arc.ampr.org<<<<<<<<<<
I agree with the statement that the most relevant thing is finding
the place today ... good point. However, when the county name
changes, for example, and the town disappears over time, then it is
hard to locate the old records because I might be looking in the
wrong county. Maybe I could simply enter a fact under Residence
which explains the name difference??
Regarding the difficulty about assigning USA to any part of the
colonies, it does confirm that the spot is in what is now the USA.
If one consistently uses the location's name at the time of the
fact, then one would not enter USA before it was the USA. On the
other hand, practically speaking, entering USA can be seen as
clarifying. Also, I'm not sure I will research thoroughly the names
of places on the date of the fact for all of my persons and all
their facts. While we in the USA will recognize 'Jamestown' given
the correct date range, this would not be true around the world.
Soooooooooooo, I think I'll enter the correct location at the time
with a residence entry clarifying the details. Extra work, but it
will help me be clear to myself.
Thanks All,
Sharon Z.
SHARON Zingery <szin...@sbcglobal.net>
SHARON Zingery
> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>
>I don't show USA - I do show foreign countries.
>Showing Virginia would at least enable people living today to
determine the location in all probability. And people from 1720 are
probably not checking things like that anymore.
>If anyone disagrees with the method maybe they would divulge the
authorized way to do it - if there is one.
>I understand this is a bit of a smart aleck reply, but when you
can't win, you do what you wish.
>Hugh
>>Ea...@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan)
Hugh, I'm rather partial to smart alecks actually!! I did write
hoping there was an "authorized" way.
I, too, have not been entering USA on anything ... BUT Ancestry.com
seems to add USA or United States of America on everything. I've
only been erasing it for dates before we were officially USA ...
rather stubborn of me, I guess. Maybe this cannot be
standardized???
How does one know when they are 'winning?'
Thanks, Sharon Z.
SHARON Zingery <szin...@sbcglobal.net>
Wes Groleau
> I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
> and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate Locations. A
>
> Ian Goddard
Can you describe what GRAMPS does with all of that when outputting
GEDCOM ?
--
Wes Groleau
Obama Changing =E2=80=9CLatin=E2=80=9D Policies
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=3D1515
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> The generally accepted method is to enter the name of the town or
> county as it was at the time of the event.
>
> bob gillis
What does "generally accepted" mean to you?
The evidence in this newsgroup is that entering the name of the town
or county as it was at the time of the event is not "generally
accepted" as I would interpret the phrase.
It does not also seem to me to be generally accepted by producers of
genealogy software.
--
Wes Groleau
Why does everyone call it a "fanny pack" ?
When was the last time you saw one on a fanny?
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
bob gillis
Wes Groleau wrote:
> > The generally accepted method is to enter the name of the town or
> > county as it was at the time of the event.
> >
> > bob gillis
>
> What does "generally accepted" mean to you?
>
> The evidence in this newsgroup is that entering the name of the town
> or county as it was at the time of the event is not "generally
> accepted" as I would interpret the phrase.
But the people who replied/reply on this list/newsgroup are not
everybody.
> It does not also seem to me to be generally accepted by producers of
> genealogy software.
How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
being used.
SHARON Zingery
> Can you describe what GRAMPS does with all of that when outputting
> GEDCOM ?
>
> --
>
> Obama Changing =E2=80=9CLatin=E2=80=9D Policies
> http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=3D1515
Wes, I tried your political link and got an error message that it
does not exist. What up?
Sharon
SHARON Zingery <szin...@sbcglobal.net>
Wes Groleau
> You can get slightly different lat/lons from different devices.
> Do I use your device's numbers or the numbers from one of the
> ones I have?
>
If you use your device to go to the numbers he gives, you will be
within a sixty-second walk from the right place. Unless one of you
needs to replace the device.
--
Wes Groleau
Words of the Wild Wes
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Ian Goddard
> > I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
> > Gramps has a Place entity type. A Place has a name, Long& Lat refs
> > and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate Locations. A
> > Location is essentially [snip].
> >
> > Ian Goddard
>
> Can you describe what GRAMPS does with all of that when outputting
> GEDCOM ?
>
Dunno, don't care. I don't think in the GEDCOM box.
Wes Groleau
> Ummm, when you export that to a narrative report similar to the
> Register or Henry reports -- doesn't all that detail repeated for
> each person use up an awful lot of reader-patience/tolerance?
>
I don't know about him, but if the exporting program wasn't smart
enough to replace repetition with something briefer and a
back-reference, then I would not be using it to generate such a
report!
--
Wes Groleau
A parent=E2=80=99s encounter with his daughter taking Latin
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=3D1434
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> unified, and RSA for South Africa (by the way, the abbreviation USA
> was never used for the Union of South Africa -- it was always "the
> Union", which later became "the Republic" in 1961).
>
But USA for Union of South Africa is a misinterpretation that I
would not be surprised to find someone making. So I can understand
if someone wants to disallow USA in files they accept. But I used
USA because I misinterpreted software manual to mean that Chapman
codes were required.
--
Wes Groleau
Methods meddling by amateurs
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=889
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
>>> The most important thing: Based on the name used, can one find it
> on today's map of the world?
Supplementing the name (original or current) with Lat./Long. will
enable most people to find it on a current map if it still exists.
However,
> I agree with the statement that the most relevant thing is finding
> the place today ... good point. However, when the county name
> changes, for example, and the town disappears over time, then it is
> hard to locate the old records because I might be looking in the
> wrong county. Maybe I could simply enter a fact under Residence
> which explains the name difference??
That couldn't hurt. But the person who wants to find the records
ought to be looking in one of the readily available references that
explain how boundaries changes over the years. And the person who
want to find it on a map might do the same--or check a gazetteer for
assistance.
> Soooooooooooo, I think I'll enter the correct location at the time
> with a residence entry clarifying the details. Extra work, but it
> will help me be clear to myself.
Good idea (assuming it is a residence). It is also allowed by the
GEDCOM spec (and therefore by any program of any quality) to have
notes on place records.
--
Wes Groleau
New =E2=80=9CTelenovelas=E2=80=9D Web Page
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=3D1032
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Ian Goddard
singhals wrote:
> Ian Goddard wrote:
>
>>> What is proper to enter when someone is, say, born in Virginia in
>>> 1720? Most seem to include USA when, of course, we were not yet the
>>> United States of America.
>>>
>>> Also, what about changes of county names? I think I should enter
>>> the name of the county at the time of the event but the location
>>> may have changed names. I've seen it done both ways.
>>>
>>> SHARON Zingery
>> I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
>> Gramps has a Place entity type. A Place has a name, Long& Lat refs
>
> You can get slightly different lat/lons from different devices. Do I
> use your device's numbers or the numbers from one of the ones I
> have?
I use the lat/lons that www.streetmap.co.uk gives me. I can
position its cursor on the location & then click the link for
coordinates. Of course if the locality is now submerged below a
reservoir a little guess-work/reliance on old maps is called for but
it's still easier than a GPS ;)
This does raise an interesting point, however. How do you deal with
a town or village as opposed to something small like a building or
street?
I tried importing a file of geo references. The approach adopted in
building the file seemed to have been to chop off a few significant
figures from the reference. Seems reasonable - you can't specify
the position of a village to the nearest yard. Wrong. Lopping off
those extra figures moved the reference right off centre at best,
well over to the next village at worst.
>> and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate Locations. A
>> Location is essentially an address (including phone number - not too
>
> Ummm, when you export that to a narrative report similar to the
> Register or Henry reports -- doesn't all that detail repeated for
> each person use up an awful lot of reader-patience/tolerance?
Frankly I find that computer generated "narrative" reports use up an
awful lot of my tolerance. They're not really narrative as human
would write them and they lack the conciseness of the sort of
database reports I used to put together during my working life.
>> In short, to handle places properly one really needs to be able to
>> allocate the place to a series of hierarchies, each of which might
>> change over time. I doubt if any genealogical application attempts
>> to handle this adequately.
>
> It MAY be possible that researchers outside the US need that level
> of detail. I'd doubt many beneficiaries of their efforts would care
> about it, though.
OK, there are two responses to that. The obvious one is that some
of use - in fact, quite a lot of us, live outside the US.
The more significant one is that a lot of researchers in the US end
up tracing lines back to a country with which they're not familiar.
I do find myself on various forums trying to clear up problems
caused by such a lack of familiarity.
And the other side of the coin are the problems I find in LDS's
handling of Irish Civil Registration: it's quite useless to try to
narrow a search by the name of the registration district because
although the hits will return the registration district whoever
designed the search didn't grasp the significance of including the
registration districts in the search index.
> Here in the US, each of us is living on a spot of land covered by
> the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, and the LDS canon
> divisions. Not belonging to any of those groups, I have no clue
> which parish-level subdivision my house is in according to them.
>
> Meanwhile, there is a tax district, a municipal level, and a school
> district. The electric power company has us in grid D-15, the water
> company puts us in their grid 67-E, and the gas company has us in
> AH-45.
>
> NONE of those bits of info is likely to be useful 20 years from now,
> let alone 50 or 100.
>
> Having any of that in a sentence that starts out, "Carl was born at
> 7:05 am EDT on Sunday 1 August, in Gregory Hines School district
> (city tax district) Pepco D-15, WSSC67-E, WGL AH-45, Fox Haven
> subdivision, South Dry Prong, Shilong Dist, Dusty County, Wherebego,
> United States ..." seems like TMI, not to say overkill. Why toss in
> that Gregory Hines used to be Bill Bailey Section, the tax district
> used to be rural then was settled, and then urban, and is now city,
> or that Fox Have subdivision used to be Old MacDonald Farm, which
> was part of the Bladen Tract ...
But including those bits of information which will guide someone to
where the relevant vital records may be found may save someone a
good deal of grief; maybe they're not inclined to accept your
version of events until they've checked for themselves.
Ian Goddard
This is an addition to my first reply.
s.g.britain currently has a thread running on the details of one
particular registration district in Wales and why people aren't
appearing in the district the OP expected.
bob gillis
>> One argument for using the county name as it is today is that it
>> makes it easier for others to find it. Using that logic ISTM would
>> sooner or later result in entering a URL for the on-line version
>> of the record, not the name of the locale. If that's the choice you
>> make, could you phrase it as "using the modern county name"? (g)
>>
>> "Cheryl Singhals"<sing...@erols.com>
It may make it easier for someone to find the county on a map, but
is may may make it very difficult for someone to find the record.
In most cases when a county is split off from another county the
records prior to the split stay with the original county
D Stussy wrote (i think)
>
>> Unless there's a strong historical reason to use the old name (e.g.
>> "Salem Village" vs. Danvers), I use the name that is most likely to
>> guide the person to the proper location.
A bit long but informative.
Salem Village was the name of part or northern part of the town of
Salem, Essex County, MA which in 1752, along with the Middle
Precinct (now Peabody) was set off as Danvers. In 1671 "the Farms
was set off as the Salem Village Parish"..However all records prior
to 1752 are retained in Salem and found under Salem.
More important to a person seeking information on records in a place
are good sources that show where the records are located rather than
just the place name as entered in a genealogy program.
Wes Groleau
> Dunno, don't care. I don't think in the GEDCOM box.
>
Fair enough. But a lot of vendors do. Well, that's arguable. The
more I look at GEDCOM, the more I'm tempted to say a lot of genie
programmers don't think in the GEDCOM box. Ironically, PAF is the
worst I've seen. No, I take that back. The worst I've seen was
caused by trying to be compatible with PAF.
--
Wes Groleau
Even if you do learn to speak correct English,
whom are you going to speak it to?
-- Clarence Darrow
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> I tried importing a file of geo references. The approach adopted in
> building the file seemed to have been to chop off a few significant
> figures from the reference. Seems reasonable - you can't specify
> the position of a village to the nearest yard. Wrong. Lopping off
> those extra figures moved the reference right off centre at best,
> well over to the next village at worst.
>
What they should have done is _round_, not truncate.
Unless you actually want it to be in the center, in which case you
DO specify to the nearest, oh, say twenty yards. About one
thousandth of a degree. That's about the accuracy limit of the GPS
in my iPhone.
--
Wes Groleau
The Miracle Worker?
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=668
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
>> > Having any of that in a sentence that starts out, "Carl was born at
>> > 7:05 am EDT on Sunday 1 August, in Gregory Hines School district
>> > (city tax district) Pepco D-15, WSSC67-E, WGL AH-45, Fox Haven
>> > subdivision, South Dry Prong, Shilong Dist, Dusty County, Wherebego,
>> > United States ..." seems like TMI, not to say overkill. Why toss in
>> > that Gregory Hines used to be Bill Bailey Section, the tax district
>> > used to be rural then was settled, and then urban, and is now city,
>> > or that Fox Have subdivision used to be Old MacDonald Farm, which
>> > was part of the Bladen Tract ...
>
> But including those bits of information which will guide someone to
> where the relevant vital records may be found may save someone a
> good deal of grief; maybe they're not inclined to accept your
> version of events until they've checked for themselves.
>
Well, maybe. But if I use a tax record as a source, I will cite the
tax record, and include a repository record, rather than telling
someone he lived in that tax district and making them guess whether
and where there was a record.
--
Wes Groleau
Oral language in the classroom=E2=80=94what is it good for?
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=3D1351
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
> being used.
>
> bob gillis
If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it in a way the
program allows or you don't enter it.
--
Wes Groleau
Miss Universe had =E2=80=9Clots of fun=E2=80=9D in Guantanamo
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=3D1537
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> > Can you describe what GRAMPS does with all of that when outputting
> > GEDCOM ?
> >
> > --
> > Wes Groleau<Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
> >
> > Obama Changing =E2=80=9CLatin=E2=80=9D Policies
> > http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=3D1515
>
> Wes, I tried your political link and got an error message that it
> does not exist. What up?
>
The author might consider it educational rather than political. :-)
It appears that either my ISP or eternal-septmeber.org has gotten
stupid and is changing headers without changing the encoding to
match.
=E2 is how a particular encoding method (which I do NOT use) sends
out the byte which is in hex E2 (11100010) (and similar for the
others).
UTF-8, which I _do_ use, represents an opening quotation mark as E2
80 9C and a closing as E2 80 9C. The correct link is
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=1515
If the servers/relays screw it up again, note that the same encoding
method uses =3D for an equal sign.
If still stuck and you REALLY want to read Richard's article, go to
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell
and put the words Obama and Latin in the search form.
--
Wes Groleau
A provocative quote
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=87
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Steve Hayes
> > unified, and RSA for South Africa (by the way, the abbreviation USA
> > was never used for the Union of South Africa -- it was always "the
> > Union", which later became "the Republic" in 1961).
> >
> > Steve Hayes
>
> But USA for Union of South Africa is a misinterpretation that I
> would not be surprised to find someone making. So I can understand
> if someone wants to disallow USA in files they accept. But I used
> USA because I misinterpreted software manual to mean that Chapman
> codes were required.
>
Similarly the abbreviations Ca and CA can be confused. I suppose
that's why Chapman used CAN for the latter.
Chapman also used RSA for South Africa, which is the one that is
used locally, though many people use SA. That, however can be
confused with South Australia, and WA causes similar confusion.
I use USA in my genealogy programs, because United States of America
is much longer to type. Leaving it off leads to ambiguity - Georgia
could mean either the US state or the Caucasian republic.
bob gillis
>>> I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
>>> Gramps has a Place entity type. A Place has a name, Long&
>>> Lat refs and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate
>>> Locations. A Location is essentially [snip].
>>>
>>> Ian Goddard
>>
>> Can you describe what GRAMPS does with all of that when outputting
>> GEDCOM ?
>>
>
> Dunno, don't care. I don't think in the GEDCOM box.
>
Ian, you sure are the grump.
What GEDCOM does with information contained in a genealogy program
data depends on whether GEDCOM recognizes the data. Given the age
of the GEDCOM protocol I doubt that the L&L refs or the Alternate
Location References would be picked up in a GEDCOM export. If they
are not picked up then they are just ignored.
Other than the Birth, Christening, Marriage, Divorce, (and I am not
sure GEDCOM can handle a Divorce) Death and Burial information with
Name Location Date and Source I do not think that any other
information can be handled by GEDCOM.
TMG has many features like Name Variations, Witnesses to Tags etc.
which AFAIK are ignored in a GEDCOM export.
Wes Groleau
> What GEDCOM does with information contained in a genealogy program
> data depends on whether GEDCOM recognizes the data. Given the age
> of the GEDCOM protocol I doubt that the L&L refs or the Alternate
> Location References would be picked up in a GEDCOM export. If they
> are not picked up then they are just ignored.
>
Bob, GEDCOM doesn't do anything with data except hold it. GEDCOM is
a way of formatting the data. And it does have a way to hold
Latitude/Longitude, divorces, emigrations, immigrations,
graduations, residences, and lots of other things.
singhals
> How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
> being used.
>
> bob gillis
Well, I tend to agree one ought not, as a matter of /principle/,
allow one's programs to dictate the content and form one wishes for
one's data.
As a matter of practicality, however, and having been on the
receiving end of seriously odd-ball presentations of fact ... nope.
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
Ian Goddard
bob gillis wrote:
>>>> I don't know how you could handle this in other applications but
>>>> Gramps has a Place entity type. A Place has a name, Long&
>>>> Lat refs and ID and a Location plus zero or more Alternate
>>>> Locations. A Location is essentially [snip].
>>>>
>>>> Ian Goddard
>>> Can you describe what GRAMPS does with all of that when outputting
>>> GEDCOM ?
>>>
>>> Wes Groleau
>> Dunno, don't care. I don't think in the GEDCOM box.
>>
>> Ian Goddard
>
> Ian, you sure are the grump.
I spent half of my working life as a scientist which develops the
habit of treating evidence fully. The other half was spent in IT,
both as a developer & as a DBA. The one set of experiences tells me
when systems aren't able to do what the other set tells me should be
done.
> What GEDCOM does with information contained in a genealogy program
> data depends on whether GEDCOM recognizes the data. Given the age
> of the GEDCOM protocol
That may be part of the problem but the real problem AFAIA is that
Gedcom was designed to meet the needs of the Mormon church which are
not exactly the same as those of family historians. Only the
intersect of those two sets of needs is filled as far as the family
historian is concerned. This poses a dilemma for the S/W developer:
a package which is dominated by what standard Gedcom allows is
restricted whilst a package which ignores the restrictions is unable
to export all its data without private extensions which may be
meaningless to other programs.
> I doubt that the L&L refs or the Alternate
> Location References would be picked up in a GEDCOM export. If they
> are not picked up then they are just ignored.
FWIW here's an example of what gets exported by Gramps:
1 BIRT
2 TYPE Birth of Goddard, Francis
2 DATE BEF 25 JUN 1760
2 PLAC Larks House, Hepworth
3 MAP
4 LATI N53.558552
4 LONG W1.74641
2 ADDR
3 CITY Hepworth
3 CTRY England
It omits the county (WRY) and church parish (Kirkburton). And by no
stretch of the imagination ca Hepworth be described as a city.
> Other than the Birth, Christening, Marriage, Divorce, (and I am not
> sure GEDCOM can handle a Divorce) Death and Burial information with
> Name Location Date and Source I do not think that any other
> information can be handled by GEDCOM.
>
> TMG has many features like Name Variations, Witnesses to Tags etc.
> which AFAIK are ignored in a GEDCOM export.
As I said above.
bob gillis
On 8/6/2010 4:45 PM, Wes Groleau wrote:
>> How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
>> being used.
>>
>> bob gillis
I did not write the above either in a message with this subject or
any other message to GENMTD in 2010. I have just search the list
archives.
[ Bob, look for
Subject: Re: [GM] proper entry of locations when names change
Message-id: <201008041920...@askin-17.linkpendium.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 12:20:35 -0700 (PDT)
- Mod ]
> If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it in a way the
> program allows or you don't enter it.
That is a stupid statement.
bob gillis
On 8/6/2010 4:45 PM, Wes Groleau wrote:
>> How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
>> being used.
>>
>> bob gillis
I did not write the above either in a message with this subject or any
other message to GENMTD in 2010. I have just search the list archives.
I did write in a message with subject:
Documenting given name changes
> How you document name changes depends on your genealogy program, how
> you want to record the names and how you want reports to show his name.
That is a completely different subject and different statement.
> If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it in a way the
> program allows or you don't enter it.
That is a stupid statement.
bob gillis
bob gillis <robert...@verizon.net>
Wes Groleau
Ian Goddard wrote:
> That may be part of the problem but the real problem AFAIA is that
> Gedcom was designed to meet the needs of the Mormon church which are
> not exactly the same as those of family historians. Only the
> intersect of those two sets of needs is filled as far as the family
> historian is concerned. This poses a dilemma for the S/W developer:
> a package which is dominated by what standard Gedcom allows is
> restricted whilst a package which ignores the restrictions is unable
> to export all its data without private extensions which may be
> meaningless to other programs.
GEDCOM has some serious flaws, but it's biggest disadvantage is the
plethora of programs that offer features GEDCOM _does_ support, yet
refuse to be bound to any "standard."
Examples: (1) there's a program that does
1 NAME Jane /Doe/
2 _MARNM Jane /Roe/
when the "standard" already defined
1 NAME Jane /Doe/
1 NAME Jane /Roe/
2 TYPE married
(2) the "standard" allows you to have a source for an event:
1 BIRT
2 DATE whatever
2 SOUR @source-ref@
yet at least one program prefers to say
1 NOTE ! birth-source yadda yadda
The '1 NOTE' "by the book" says this is a NOTE (not a source) for
the entire individual's record. The rest of the line says, "Yeah,
but we don't like the GEDCOM spec, so it's really a source for the
birth subrecord."
(ironically, a program from the group that invented GEDCOM)
(3) GRAMPS
> FWIW here's an example of what gets exported by Gramps:
>
> 1 BIRT
> 2 TYPE Birth of Goddard, Francis
What's the point of this? We knew it was a birth from the line
above. And if you know the name, you should be putting it in a 1
NAME Francis /Goddard/
> 2 DATE BEF 25 JUN 1760
> 2 PLAC Larks House, Hepworth
> 3 MAP
> 4 LATI N53.558552
> 4 LONG W1.74641
> 2 ADDR
> 3 CITY Hepworth
> 3 CTRY England
>
> It omits the county (WRY) and church parish (Kirkburton). And by no
> stretch of the imagination ca Hepworth be described as a city.
If Hepworth is not a city, why is GRAMPS saying it is? And if GRAMPS
omits the county, which the GEDCOM spec both allows and recommends,
why?
--
Wes Groleau
Change is inevitable. We need to learn that "inevitable" is
neither a synonym for "good" nor for "bad."
-- WWG
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
On 08-07-2010 12:47, bob gillis wrote:
> On 8/6/2010 4:45 PM, Wes Groleau quoted:
>>> How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
>>> being used.
>>>
>>> bob gillis
>
> I did not write the above either in a message with this subject or
> any other message to GENMTD in 2010. I have just search the list
> archives.
Somebody or something, with or without your approval, put the above
on Usenet and included headers of
From: bob gillis <robert...@verizon.net>
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.methods
Subject: Re: proper entry of locations when names change
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2010 11:48:54 -0700 (PDT)
>> If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it in a way the
>> program allows or you don't enter it.
>
> That is a stupid statement.
No, it is a response to a not-well-thought-through statement that
somebody forged your name on.
If the program demands that you enter the house number, then the
planet, then the name of the next door neighbor, you have four
choices:
1. Enter it the way they say
2. Find a more sensible program
3. Don't enter the location
4. Complain on Usenet that how you enter a location should
not depend on the genealogy program
Ye Old One
> > How you enter a location should not depend on the genealogy program
> > being used.
> >
> > bob gillis
>
> If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it in a way the
> program allows or you don't enter it.
>
If anyone used a genealogy program that forces them to enter a
location in a particular format then would be very foolish. No
format rules could possibly cover all locations.
Do you know of any software that does that?
--
Bob.
Ye Old One <use...@mcsuk.net>
singhals
Ian Goddard wrote:
> bob gillis wrote:
>
>> What GEDCOM does with information contained in a genealogy program
>> data depends on whether GEDCOM recognizes the data. Given the age
>> of the GEDCOM protocol
>
> That may be part of the problem but the real problem AFAIA is that
> Gedcom was designed to meet the needs of the Mormon church which are
> not exactly the same as those of family historians. Only the
> intersect of those two sets of needs is filled as far as the family
> historian is concerned. This poses a dilemma for the S/W developer:
> a package which is dominated by what standard Gedcom allows is
> restricted whilst a package which ignores the restrictions is unable
> to export all its data without private extensions which may be
> meaningless to other programs.
But Program A having private extensions which are NOT universally
accepted by Programs B thru ZZ is what allows the developers of Program
A to /copyright/ their intellectual property and regain their expenses
of developing it. Two copies of Program A should and generally do
import correct all content of a GED from one another.
>> I doubt that the L&L refs or the Alternate
>> Location References would be picked up in a GEDCOM export. If they
>> are not picked up then they are just ignored.
>
> FWIW here's an example of what gets exported by Gramps:
>
> 1 BIRT
> 2 TYPE Birth of Goddard, Francis
> 2 DATE BEF 25 JUN 1760
> 2 PLAC Larks House, Hepworth
> 3 MAP
> 4 LATI N53.558552
> 4 LONG W1.74641
> 2 ADDR
> 3 CITY Hepworth
> 3 CTRY England
>
> It omits the county (WRY) and church parish (Kirkburton). And by no
> stretch of the imagination ca Hepworth be described as a city.
You ought to know that it would bloat the code beyond belief if each
and every variation of "the entity generally referred to as City"
were offered up ... village, town, hamlet, wide-spot, City,
Metropolis, Marketing Area (NOT to be confused with Market town).
OTOH, I do agree that if you entered WRY it ought to have exported.
>> Other than the Birth, Christening, Marriage, Divorce, (and I am not
>> sure GEDCOM can handle a Divorce) Death and Burial information with
>> Name Location Date and Source I do not think that any other
>> information can be handled by GEDCOM.
GED acknowledges a divorce and will insert a tic in the correct box
on the marriage field. If any of the programs I've used had a
data-entry field for the details of a divorce, I never spotted it.
>> TMG has many features like Name Variations, Witnesses to Tags etc.
>> which AFAIK are ignored in a GEDCOM export.
>
> As I said above.
I believe TMG exports those fields -- a belief based on the fact
that TMG has from the beginning exported everything you can enter.
What the importing program does with it is not anything GED or TMG
can affect. (And now, someone will prove that TMG doesn't export
those, and disappoint me further.)
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
Joe Makowiec
On 08 Aug 2010 in soc.genealogy.methods, singhals wrote:
> Two copies of Program A should and generally do import correct all
> content of a GED from one another.
I seem to recall that somebody did this experiment some 15 years
ago, with varying results. However, the results weren't 100%. It
might be worth repeating on current versions of genealogical
software.
>>> TMG has many features like Name Variations, Witnesses to Tags etc.
>>> which AFAIK are ignored in a GEDCOM export.
>
> I believe TMG exports those fields -- a belief based on the fact
> that TMG has from the beginning exported everything you can enter.
> What the importing program does with it is not anything GED or TMG
> can affect. (And now, someone will prove that TMG doesn't export
> those, and disappoint me further.)
TMG - last I checked; I don't export much via GEDCOM - will export
every name you put into it. The problems with that are two:
- some programs will ignore multiple names on import
- (assuming that a program will accept multiple names) there seems
to be no concensus in the GEDCOM community over which name of
multiple names in an individual's GEDCOM record should be primary.
The export of TMG 'witnesses' was the subject of some debate on the
TMG mailing list. (For those not familiar, in TMG terminology,
everybody connected to an event is a 'witness'. Depending on the
event, either zero, one or two individuals can be primary. However,
unlimited numbers of individuals can be linked to an event. You can
link all 500 guests who attended your wedding!) Needless to say,
the GEDCOM standard has no mechanism to transfer this information.
A nagging thought in the back of my mind tells me that there may
have been some work done on a third-party solution to export
witnesses, but I can't find anything about it at the moment.
--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/
Joe Makowiec <mako...@invalid.invalid>
Ian Goddard
In terms of the Gramps database structure the Place is linked to the
Event and this particular text comes from the Event Description. I
guess there must have been a choice of omitting data or bending it
to fit the GEDCOM data model. This is essentially free text which
can be entered by the user but there is an option to autogenerate
the descriptions which gives the text shown.
>> 2 DATE BEF 25 JUN 1760
>> 2 PLAC Larks House, Hepworth
>> 3 MAP
>> 4 LATI N53.558552
>> 4 LONG W1.74641
>> 2 ADDR
>> 3 CITY Hepworth
>> 3 CTRY England
>>
>> It omits the county (WRY) and church parish (Kirkburton). And by no
>> stretch of the imagination ca Hepworth be described as a city.
>
> If Hepworth is not a city, why is GRAMPS saying it is?
Because, as I said, it has a fixed address format which makes
provision for a city but not for a township so I reused city for
township which is the basic land division below manor at that time
and place. Again there was a choice of bending data to fit the data
model or omitting it.
That's one of my grumps. Too much S/W has built in cultural
assumptions. Once one steps outside the bounds of the assumed
culture the user has to start to bend data to fit the data model.
And the bounds can be temporal as well as geographical.
What I'd like to see is a system where the S/W architect could say
"we need an object of class place, or personal name, or whatever
here" but there could then be a series of subclasses which provide
for the relevant variations such as patronymics etc. If there were
to be a mechanism for user-defined subclasses so much the better.
> And if GRAMPS
> omits the county, which the GEDCOM spec both allows and recommends,
> why?
Pass. I didn't write it. But I think we're in agreement that it should
be included.
Ian Goddard
singhals wrote:
> Ian Goddard wrote:
>
>> bob gillis wrote:
>>
>>> What GEDCOM does with information contained in a genealogy program
>>> data depends on whether GEDCOM recognizes the data. Given the age
>>> of the GEDCOM protocol
>> That may be part of the problem but the real problem AFAIA is that
>> Gedcom was designed to meet the needs of the Mormon church which are
>> not exactly the same as those of family historians. Only the
>> intersect of those two sets of needs is filled as far as the family
>> historian is concerned. This poses a dilemma for the S/W developer:
>> a package which is dominated by what standard Gedcom allows is
>> restricted whilst a package which ignores the restrictions is unable
>> to export all its data without private extensions which may be
>> meaningless to other programs.
>
> But Program A having private extensions which are NOT universally
> accepted by Programs B thru ZZ is what allows the developers of Program
> A to /copyright/ their intellectual property and regain their expenses
> of developing it. Two copies of Program A should and generally do
> import correct all content of a GED from one another.
The relevant word on Bob's post was *protocol*. The important thing
about protocols are that they are followed without variation.
The internet is a good example of this. The "P" in "TCP" and "IP"
both stand for protocol. Implementors of network stacks are
perfectly free to copyright their implementations to regain their
expenses but what they're not free to do is cobble on a few private,
non-portable extensions; if they did that the 'net would fail to
work. If extensions are needed they have to be developed and agreed
in an orderly fashion by the relevant parties and then rolled out.
Wes Groleau
> You ought to know that it would bloat the code beyond belief if each
> and every variation of "the entity generally referred to as City"
> were offered up ... village, town, hamlet, wide-spot, City,
> Metropolis, Marketing Area (NOT to be confused with Market town).
> OTOH, I do agree that if you entered WRY it ought to have exported.
>
But the failure to export it is a flaw in GRAMPS, not in GEDCOM.
As for "every variation," CITY, STAT, CTRY, etc. are GEDCOM's
leniency for programs unable to cope with the ideal of completely
identifying the place on the PLAC line. Similarly, SURN, GIVN,
NPFX, TITL, and umpteen others are GEDCOM's leniency for programs
that can't handle
1 NAME Dr. John /Doe/, Jr., M.D.
IMHO, that leniency is one of the flaws in GEDCOM.
Another less serious one is this odd concept that genealogists are
only interested in four-letter words.
--
Wes Groleau
Local Cheerleaders Make Newsweek
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=1460
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> Do you know of any software that does that?
>
I adopted the practice of editing my GECOM file directly simply
because I could not find ANY affordable program that didn't impose
unnecessary restrictions on what could be entered and how.
Even LifeLines. At first, I continued to use LifeLines to catch
syntax errors and errors in cross-referencing, until I got enough
practice to not need it.
Recently, I started using PGV for its collaboration functions, but
still do almost all of my edits in GEDCOM.
--
Wes Groleau
Linguaphone and the place of grammar 1954
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1586
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> guess there must have been a choice of omitting data or bending it
> to fit the GEDCOM data model. This is essentially free text which
>
Nothing in the GEDCOM spec forces anyone or anything to omit the
county.
GEDCOM allows specifying in the header of the file how to interpret
PLAC lines, for example, mine says
1 FORM specific, city, township, county, country
GEDCOM also allows adding a FORM tag to a specific place to override
the=20 file's default.
--
Wes Groleau
First Language Acquisition observed up=E2=80=94close & personal
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=3D1349
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> event, either zero, one or two individuals can be primary. However,
> unlimited numbers of individuals can be linked to an event. You can
> link all 500 guests who attended your wedding!) Needless to say,
> the GEDCOM standard has no mechanism to transfer this information.
>
GEDCOM has two forms, an event-linked form and a lineage-linked
form. I don't know whether an event-linked form has ever been
clearly defined.
The lineage-linked form does have an ASSOciated tag which allows the
linking of a person to any other by specifying the relationship in a
sub-record. BUT it can only be done INDI to INDI to be strictly
spec-compliant. Of course, few programs make much effort to be
strictly spec-compliant.
Lineage-linked GEDCOM also has a ROLE tag that can specify a
person's role in an event. Unfortunately,
(1) it has no way to say WHOSE role, so it is only practical if the
event is a subrecord of an INDIvidual.
(2) And even when in an INDI, it is technically supposed to be part
of a source citation, rather than a direct part of the event.
Somewhat of a rather odd restriction.
--
Wes Groleau
A short talk on children and education
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1593
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Ye Old One
> > Do you know of any software that does that?
> >
> > Ye Old One
>
> I adopted the practice of editing my GECOM file directly simply
> because I could not find ANY affordable program that didn't impose
> unnecessary restrictions on what could be entered and how.
>
> Even LifeLines. At first, I continued to use LifeLines to catch
> syntax errors and errors in cross-referencing, until I got enough
> practice to not need it.
>
> Recently, I started using PGV for its collaboration functions, but
> still do almost all of my edits in GEDCOM.
>
My question related to the claim that there was genealogy software
that forces you to enter a location (like birth place) in a specific
way. I haven't encountered any and was trying to understand the
comment that "If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it
in a way the program allows or you don't enter it."
Ian Goddard
Wes Groleau wrote:
> > guess there must have been a choice of omitting data or bending it
> > to fit the GEDCOM data model. This is essentially free text which
> >
> > Ian Goddard
>
> Nothing in the GEDCOM spec forces anyone or anything to omit the
> county.
For avoidance of doubt, we're in agreement.
> GEDCOM allows specifying in the header of the file how to interpret
> PLAC lines, for example, mine says
> 1 FORM specific, city, township, county, country
>
> GEDCOM also allows adding a FORM tag to a specific place to override
> the file's default.
Again for avoidance of doubt, I wasn't complaining about how GEDCOM
handles places but the fact that I'm presented with a fixed format
for handling places in S/W.
My problems with GEDCOM are far more fundamental than that.
Wes Groleau
On 08-10-2010 20:10, Wes Groleau wrote:
> GEDCOM allows specifying in the header of the file how to interpret
> PLAC lines, for example, mine says
> 1 FORM specific, city, township, county, country
>
> GEDCOM also allows adding a FORM tag to a specific place to override
> the=20 file's default.
I was just re-reading this thread. Ian, to what extent does the
above address your
> What I'd like to see is a system where the S/W architect could say
> "we need an object of class place, or personal name, or whatever
> here" but there could then be a series of subclasses which provide
> for the relevant variations such as patronymics etc. If there were
> to be a mechanism for user-defined subclasses so much the better.
--
Wes Groleau
Homework Again
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=1577
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> My question related to the claim that there was genealogy software
> that forces you to enter a location (like birth place) in a specific
> way. I haven't encountered any and was trying to understand the
> comment that "If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it
> in a way the program allows or you don't enter it."
>
The GEDCOM spec encourages entering the place on a single line,
putting the most specific known part first, and least specific,
e.g., country, last. But for the benefit of programs that can't
handle that, it allows splitting them up into parts. All too often,
these parts are in separate boxes, labeled according to the
programmer's assumption that every place in the solar system is
organized the same way as his village.
--
Wes Groleau
Teaching Tip: Take Care of your Health
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=1465
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Ye Old One
> > My question related to the claim that there was genealogy software
> > that forces you to enter a location (like birth place) in a specific
> > way. I haven't encountered any and was trying to understand the
> > comment that "If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it
> > in a way the program allows or you don't enter it."
> >
> > Ye Old One
>
> The GEDCOM spec encourages entering the place on a single line,
> putting the most specific known part first, and least specific,
> e.g., country, last. But for the benefit of programs that can't
> handle that, it allows splitting them up into parts. All too often,
> these parts are in separate boxes, labeled according to the
> programmer's assumption that every place in the solar system is
> organized the same way as his village.
>
All of the programs I've used just have a box labeled "location",
what goes in that is entirely up to the user.
singhals
> > My question related to the claim that there was genealogy software
> > that forces you to enter a location (like birth place) in a specific
> > way. I haven't encountered any and was trying to understand the
> > comment that "If you choose to use a genealogy program, you enter it
> > in a way the program allows or you don't enter it."
> >
>
> The GEDCOM spec encourages entering the place on a single line,
> putting the most specific known part first, and least specific,
> e.g., country, last. But for the benefit of programs that can't
> handle that, it allows splitting them up into parts. All too often,
> these parts are in separate boxes, labeled according to the
> programmer's assumption that every place in the solar system is
> organized the same way as his village.
>
> Wes Groleau
Just /wait/ until someone has to enter Sarek of Vulcan in his data!
Those dudes have three sets of names (well, OK, 4 if you count the
secret one). And what about the Ferengi, whose women seem not to
have names at all ...
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
Ian Goddard
It's complicated enough to have John son of Thomas son of Nicholas
de Snayth, presumably so called to differentiate him from John son
of Thomas, clerk of Snayth. Then there's Edmund the tanner who was
no doubt identical with Edmund le Barker and Edmund son of William,
tanner.
And John son of Matilda de Tideworhhaghe is another name to conjour
with.
D. Stussy
Of course: Women in the Ferengi Empire are property.
The program I use (BK v6.4) includes a "formerly known as" field for
locations, as well as longitude and latitude coordinate fields.
Terry Brown
> > The generally accepted method is to enter the name of the town or
> > county as it was at the time of the event.
> >
> > bob gillis
>
> What does "generally accepted" mean to you?
>
> The evidence in this newsgroup is that entering the name of the town
> or county as it was at the time of the event is not "generally
> accepted" as I would interpret the phrase.
>
> It does not also seem to me to be generally accepted by producers of
> genealogy software.
>
> Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
I think if you consult most any genealogy tutorial, you will find
that this is the recommended practice. Certainly if you look at
articles in the NGS Quarterly, which sets a high standard for
genealogical practice, you will see this.
Consider that you're asserting certain facts about each person. If
you say that "Joe Blow was born 1 Jan 1850 in Sometown, West
Virginia", that is just wrong. There was no West Virginia in 1850,
so he could not possibly have been born there. If you want to add a
note explaining that Sometown is now in West Virginia, do that. But
the facts of the event should be correct when considered as a whole.
I also disagree with the position expressed by several people that
the most important thing is to be able to find the location on
today's map. I think it is far more important to be able to find
the original records that allow you to document the event, which as
people have pointed out, will be found in the original location,
e.g. county, not the new one. Records tend to stay where they were
created, they don't get moved to the new county seat when one county
is split off from another.
Terry
Terry Brown <terry...@acm.org>
cecilia
> [...] Records tend to stay where they were
> created, they don't get moved to the new county seat when one county
>
> Terry Brown <terry...@acm.org>
In the UK they may move - pre-1858 wills proved at Chester included
some from locations in Lancashire, which were sent to Preston from
Chester some time in the 20C (I gather). It took me sometime to ask
why the Cheshire on-line index to their ordering system did not
include some of the wills listed in 19C lists of wills held at
Chester - to begin with, I thought it was my inefficiency with
search parameters, and then for some time I sadly thought it must be
that the will had been mislaid, destroyed etc.
my...@ic24.net (cecilia)
cecilia
> [...] Then there's Edmund the tanner who was
> no doubt identical with Edmund le Barker
> and Edmund son of William,
>
> Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
Some years ago, one-name hunting in published Cheshire record
transcriptions, I noticed an on-going case that appeared at court
session after court session in the middle ages, one party being a
minor so his guardian was mentioned. The named guardian had the
same given name each time, but the same surname never appeared twice
in a row.
my...@ic24.net (cecilia)
Bob LeChevalier
Terry Brown <terry...@acm.org> wrote:
> > > The generally accepted method is to enter the name of the town or
> > > county as it was at the time of the event.
> > >
> > > bob gillis
> >
> > What does "generally accepted" mean to you?
> >
> > The evidence in this newsgroup is that entering the name of the town
> > or county as it was at the time of the event is not "generally
> > accepted" as I would interpret the phrase.
> >
> > It does not also seem to me to be generally accepted by producers of
> > genealogy software.
> >
> > Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
>
> I think if you consult most any genealogy tutorial, you will find
> that this is the recommended practice. Certainly if you look at
> articles in the NGS Quarterly, which sets a high standard for
> genealogical practice, you will see this.
I don't ever plan to submit an article to NGS, so their standards
are irrelevant to me.
> Consider that you're asserting certain facts about each person. If
> you say that "Joe Blow was born 1 Jan 1850 in Sometown, West
> Virginia", that is just wrong.
Not really.
A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
reorganized and subdivided its counties.
If I record his birth, marriage, and death in different counties, I
imply that the places were NOT the same. That is just as "wrong" as
recording the present place-name.
If I record them as the same place, most likely where the place is
now, my friend can see on a map where his ancestor lived and died.
I contend that, for my audience (which is not the NGS, but my friend
and his family), my report is at least as correct as one that says
that the locations of the different events were different.
More importantly, my report is useful to my audience.
> There was no West Virginia in 1850, so he could not possibly have
> been born there. If you want to add a note explaining that Sometown
> is now in West Virginia, do that.
I do. By putting West Virginia in the location field. If WV did
not exist in 1850, then a note might say this. But I likely
wouldn't bother, because anyone who cares almost certainly knows
that a WV location in 1850 was really part of VA.
My genealogical data exists NOW, not in 1850. And I primarily
communicate with ordinary people, and not academic genealogists.
> I also disagree with the position expressed by several people that
> the most important thing is to be able to find the location on
> today's map.
That is what *I* do most often with locations - find out where they
are, by looking on a map.
More importantly, almost anyone who reads a report from my data base
who cares about a location, will care where the location is now.
> I think it is far more important to be able to find
> the original records that allow you to document the event, which as
> people have pointed out, will be found in the original location,
> e.g. county, not the new one.
I don't ever plan to seek out repositories for original data, so the
locations of such repositories are utterly uninteresting to me. If
I were inclined to record what county Sometown was in, in 1850, for
the purpose you suggest, it seems that it should be in the Source
information.
> Records tend to stay where they were created, they don't get moved
> to the new county seat when one county is split off from another.
So what? I'm not interested in where a record is. I am interested
in where the person lived.
More importantly, UNLESS I have used the original source record, I
may have no idea what the NGS "proper" location is.
If great Aunt Sally says that someone was born in Sometown, WV, the
actual location was probably not in the town, because few people
lived in towns in 1850 rural Appalachia. So the actual location was
somewhere in the vicinity of Sometown, and I have no idea what side
of the county or state line the actual location was. But my source
says "Aunt Sally" and if she said "Sometown, West Virginia" then
that is a good reason to record what she said as "Sometown, West
Virginia".
In her source record.
If I have another source that says "Sometown, Virginia", it
*probably* is the same location, but it might not be, because there
could be other "Sometown"s. But that will be recorded in a
different source record.
What I enter in the location field for a person is my own conclusion
from the sources, not what the sources said. That conclusion is
based on my personal geographic knowledge, and I rarely have a
reason to take the trouble to determine what the boundaries were in
1850.
lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier - artificial linguist; genealogist
loj...@lojban.org Lojban language www.lojban.org
singhals
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>
> Terry Brown<terry...@acm.org> wrote:
>
>>>> The generally accepted method is to enter the name of the town or
>>>> county as it was at the time of the event.
>>>>
>>>> bob gillis
>>>
>>> What does "generally accepted" mean to you?
>>>
>>> The evidence in this newsgroup is that entering the name of the town
>>> or county as it was at the time of the event is not "generally
>>> accepted" as I would interpret the phrase.
>>>
>>> It does not also seem to me to be generally accepted by producers of
>>> genealogy software.
>>>
>>> Wes Groleau<Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
>>
>> I think if you consult most any genealogy tutorial, you will find
>> that this is the recommended practice. Certainly if you look at
>> articles in the NGS Quarterly, which sets a high standard for
>> genealogical practice, you will see this.
>
> are irrelevant to me.
>
>
>> you say that "Joe Blow was born 1 Jan 1850 in Sometown, West
>> Virginia", that is just wrong.
>
>
> A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
> ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
> censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
> died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
> died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
> reorganized and subdivided its counties.
>
> If I record his birth, marriage, and death in different counties, I
> imply that the places were NOT the same. That is just as "wrong" as
> recording the present place-name.
>
> If I record them as the same place, most likely where the place is
> now, my friend can see on a map where his ancestor lived and died.
> I contend that, for my audience (which is not the NGS, but my friend
> and his family), my report is at least as correct as one that says
> that the locations of the different events were different.
>
> More importantly, my report is useful to my audience.
>
>
>> been born there. If you want to add a note explaining that Sometown
>> is now in West Virginia, do that.
>
> not exist in 1850, then a note might say this. But I likely
> wouldn't bother, because anyone who cares almost certainly knows
> that a WV location in 1850 was really part of VA.
>
> My genealogical data exists NOW, not in 1850. And I primarily
> communicate with ordinary people, and not academic genealogists.
>
>
>> the most important thing is to be able to find the location on
>> today's map.
>
> are, by looking on a map.
>
> More importantly, almost anyone who reads a report from my data base
> who cares about a location, will care where the location is now.
>
>
>> the original records that allow you to document the event, which as
>> people have pointed out, will be found in the original location,
>> e.g. county, not the new one.
>
> locations of such repositories are utterly uninteresting to me. If
> I were inclined to record what county Sometown was in, in 1850, for
> the purpose you suggest, it seems that it should be in the Source
> information.
>
>
>> to the new county seat when one county is split off from another.
>
> in where the person lived.
>
> More importantly, UNLESS I have used the original source record, I
> may have no idea what the NGS "proper" location is.
>
> If great Aunt Sally says that someone was born in Sometown, WV, the
> actual location was probably not in the town, because few people
> lived in towns in 1850 rural Appalachia. So the actual location was
> somewhere in the vicinity of Sometown, and I have no idea what side
> of the county or state line the actual location was. But my source
> says "Aunt Sally" and if she said "Sometown, West Virginia" then
> that is a good reason to record what she said as "Sometown, West
> Virginia".
>
> In her source record.
>
> If I have another source that says "Sometown, Virginia", it
> *probably* is the same location, but it might not be, because there
> could be other "Sometown"s. But that will be recorded in a
> different source record.
>
> What I enter in the location field for a person is my own conclusion
> from the sources, not what the sources said. That conclusion is
> based on my personal geographic knowledge, and I rarely have a
> reason to take the trouble to determine what the boundaries were in
> 1850.
OK, do it your way, you will anyway, but just so my conscience is
clear I just gotta say /*again*/ --
From my perch above 40 years of WV research, after having grown up
there -- ANY locale given as WV with a date preceding 1865 needs to
be carefully evaluated. A great many people were stating their
political beliefs, not reality. Many more were doing a CMA to
disguise their political beliefs. A few more were simply confused,
and of course you have to toss in enumerator failure.
Now, if your Muse leads you to say someone was born in North Dakota
in 1786 or in Toronto in 1612, or in Wessex in 1980, hey, go for it.
To that extent, yes, genealogy programs need a way to indicate that
the place name changed.
But then again -- in a database of 15,000 descendants, I'm not sure
there are enough trees or electrons to print a "book" that had four
levels of places on each event, plus four more levels of alternate
place-names. And even for a dozen descendants, it's bleeding eye
boring to skim it.
FWIW
Cheryl
singhals <sing...@erols.com>
Ian Goddard
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
> ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
> censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
> died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
> died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
> reorganized and subdivided its counties.
The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm? The
name Austonley (see my sig) is Anglo-Saxon and must go back at least
1000 years. The modern English name of the group of houses where I
live is found quite early in the PRs which start mid C16th so
probably goes back 500 years or more. Place names on the small
scale can be quite stable unless the place itself disappears off the
map. It's the organisation around them that changes.
> If I record his birth, marriage, and death in different counties, I
> imply that the places were NOT the same.
No you don't. You simply aclnowledge that the /counties/ were not
the same.
> That is just as "wrong" as
> recording the present place-name.
>
> If I record them as the same place, most likely where the place is
> now, my friend can see on a map where his ancestor lived and died.
> I contend that, for my audience (which is not the NGS, but my friend
> and his family), my report is at least as correct as one that says
> that the locations of the different events were different.
>
> More importantly, my report is useful to my audience.
One thing which should be useful to your audience is that the
assignment of county changed in accordance with your expectations.
If it didn't then you'd have realised that you'd picked on the wrong
farm and maybe the wrong ancestor. Those changes of county validate
your work.
Bob LeChevalier
Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>
> > A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
> > ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
> > censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
> > died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
> > died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
> > reorganized and subdivided its counties.
>
> The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm?
What name is that? The Sammons place?
All I know is that he lived in an area called "Reed Creek" and that
this area changed county names as Georgia evolved its counties.
I've never seen any reference to any of the places being named,
other than for the person who lived there.
> The name Austonley (see my sig) is Anglo-Saxon and must go back at least
> 1000 years. The modern English name of the group of houses where I
> live is found quite early in the PRs which start mid C16th so
> probably goes back 500 years or more. Place names on the small
> scale can be quite stable unless the place itself disappears off the
> map. It's the organisation around them that changes.
The label called "Reed Creek" probably hasn't "changed", so much as
it wasn't used until the 19th century. I have no particular basis
to identify any place name below the county level before that (and
the counties at the beginning of the 19th century were large, but I
don't really know the boundaries (and don't really care, except
insofar as they are needed to identify the place).
> > If I record his birth, marriage, and death in different counties, I
> > imply that the places were NOT the same.
>
> No you don't.
To normal human beings, a different name means a different place.
> You simply acknowledge that the /counties/ were not the same.
Most people don't know that, and don't care. If I say that he lived
in Elbert Co in one census and Franklin Co in the next census (and
that is as specific a location as I have, except to know that he
didn't actually move), no one who doesn't know the history of name
changes will realize that he didn't change locations.
> > More importantly, my report is useful to my audience.
>
> One thing which should be useful to your audience is that the
> assignment of county changed in accordance with your expectations.
I have no expectations. They are just place names to me. I know
the place name changed because the census record says that they did.
I expect that the census record is correct, but I doubt that is what
you mean.
> If it didn't then you'd have realised that you'd picked on the wrong
> farm and maybe the wrong ancestor.
???
lojbab
---
bob gillis
On 8/15/2010 3:04 PM, Ian Goddard wrote:
> Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>
> > A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
> > ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
> > censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
> > died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
> > died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
> > reorganized and subdivided its counties.
>
> The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm? The
> name Austonley (see my sig) is Anglo-Saxon and must go back at least
> 1000 years. The modern English name of the group of houses where I
> live is found quite early in the PRs which start mid C16th so
> probably goes back 500 years or more. Place names on the small
> scale can be quite stable unless the place itself disappears off the
> map. It's the organisation around them that changes.
In the United Sates farms do not usually have names other than that of
the current or perhaps former owner. The same applies to houses.
> > If I record his birth, marriage, and death in different counties, I
> > imply that the places were NOT the same.
You do not imply that but in a complicated instance like you give, an
explanatory note should be included in the report/narrative.
bob gillis
bob gillis <robert...@verizon.net>
Karl P Anderson
> <snip>
>
> OK, do it your way, you will anyway, but just so my conscience is
> clear I just gotta say /*again*/ --
>
> From my perch above 40 years of WV research, after having grown up
> there -- ANY locale given as WV with a date preceding 1865 needs to
> be carefully evaluated. A great many people were stating their
> political beliefs, not reality. Many more were doing a CMA to
> disguise their political beliefs. A few more were simply confused,
> and of course you have to toss in enumerator failure.
>
> Now, if your Muse leads you to say someone was born in North Dakota
> in 1786 or in Toronto in 1612, or in Wessex in 1980, hey, go for it.
>
> To that extent, yes, genealogy programs need a way to indicate that
> the place name changed.
>
> But then again -- in a database of 15,000 descendants, I'm not sure
> there are enough trees or electrons to print a "book" that had four
> levels of places on each event, plus four more levels of alternate
> place-names. And even for a dozen descendants, it's bleeding eye
> boring to skim it.
>
Legacy allows you to enter an event that is the place where the
individual lived. Using the same event you could state the county
name changed at a certain date. The same thing goes if the farm
changed its name at some point in time. Then anyone reading the
history of this person would know to look for the individual in data
referencing both county names.
Karl P Anderson <jkand...@charter.net>
Steve Hayes
> > The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm? The
> > name Austonley (see my sig) is Anglo-Saxon and must go back at least
> > 1000 years. The modern English name of the group of houses where I
> > live is found quite early in the PRs which start mid C16th so
> > probably goes back 500 years or more. Place names on the small
> > scale can be quite stable unless the place itself disappears off the
> > map. It's the organisation around them that changes.
>
> In the United Sates farms do not usually have names other than that of
> the current or perhaps former owner. The same applies to houses.
>
How are they described in cadastral surveys?
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
bob gillis
On 8/17/2010 11:50 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>> The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm? The
>>> name Austonley (see my sig) is Anglo-Saxon and must go back at
>>> least 1000 years. The modern English name of the group of houses
>>> where I live is found quite early in the PRs which start mid
>>> C16th so probably goes back 500 years or more. Place names on
>>> the small scale can be quite stable unless the place itself
>>> disappears off the map. It's the organisation around them that
>>> changes.
>>
>> In the United Sates farms do not usually have names other than that
>> of the current or perhaps former owner. The same applies to
>> houses.
>>
>> bob gillis<robert...@verizon.net>
>
> How are they described in cadastral surveys?
From Wikipedia:
> A cadastral map is a map that shows the boundaries and ownership of
> land parcels. Some cadastral maps show additional details, such as
> survey district names, unique identifying numbers for parcels,
> certificate of title numbers, positions of existing structures,
> section or lot numbers and their respective areas, adjoining and
> adjacent street names, selected boundary dimensions and references to
> prior maps.
How farms or other properties are described on a cadastral map in
the USA and Canada depends on what part of the county the property
is located in.
East of Ohio property is generally described in metes-and-bounds.
In Ohio and to the west land is described in townships and ranges
counted from base lines:
The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is a method used in the United
States to survey and identify land parcels, particularly for titles
and deeds of rural, wild or undeveloped land. Its basic units of
area are the township and section. It is sometimes referred to as
the rectangular survey system, although non rectangular methods such
as meandering can also be used. The survey was "the first
mathematically designed system and nationally conducted cadastral
survey in any modern country" and is "an object of study by public
officials of foreign countries as a basis for land reform."
In the metes and bounds areas the various states regulations say how
land should be described.
In New Jersey where I live, each municipality sets up a system of
maps with Districts, Blocks and Lots. so our house is designated as
District 8, Block 41114, Lot 302 which is located at 16 Shawnee
Trail. Our property is also located by metes and bounds.
In the PLSS, a piece of property would be described say as Township
25 West, Range 15 North of Ohio Baseline, SW 1/4 , Section 14,
This land would be a 1/4 square mile piece, It may also have a
municipality name, subdivision, road or Street name and number.
Ian Goddard
Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>>
>>> A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
>>> ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
>>> censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
>>> died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
>>> died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
>>> reorganized and subdivided its counties.
>> The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm?
>
> What name is that? The Sammons place?
You didn't say.
> All I know is that he lived in an area called "Reed Creek" and that
> this area changed county names as Georgia evolved its counties.
> I've never seen any reference to any of the places being named,
> other than for the person who lived there.
If I've followed you correctly you have at various times Reed Creek,
Elbert Co, Reed Creek, Franklin Co and Reed Creek, Hart Co. but it's
still Reed Creek.
OK, let me provide you with an example of what I mean.
Let's consider a genealogist working on a family living around
Greenfield here:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=399500&Y=404500&A=Y&Z=120
This was historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Let's
consider what happens when he comes across a reference to someone
with that family name described as living in Grasscroft, West Riding
of Yorkshire. As there's a Grasscroft next to Greenfield he may
come to the conclusion that this is the Grasscroft in the reference
and that the person may well be part of the family.
In 1974 this little corner of Yorkshire west of the Pennines became
part of Greater Manchester whilst the adjacent part of Yorkshire
became West Yorkshire. Greenfield, therefore, became Greenfield,
Greater Manchester (or Greenfield, Oldham, Greater Manchester as the
town of Oldham also became part of Greater Manchester). Our
genealogist would then expect/assume/take for granted that his
Grasscroft resident would now be found at Grasscroft, Greater
Manchester. This expectation might be entirely subconscious. If he
were correct then discovering a post-1974 record referring to the
person as being at Grasscroft, Greater Manchester would have met his
expectation whether he realised it or not.
If, however, he'd misidentified Grasscroft and it should have been
this one
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55145&sheetid=9585&ox=2665&oy=2036&zm=1&czm=1&x=317&y=221
then he'd find that post-1974 records would place his subject in
West Yorkshire. By having his expectation contradicted he'd now
realise that his identification was wrong. Once he'd found the
correct location he would have to review his conclusion about
relationship to the Greenfield family.
Or, to put it more concisely and more formally, the changes in
county boundaries provide a test which is capable of falsifying the
identification of the location.
Steve Hayes
bob gillis <robert...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On 8/17/2010 11:50 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>>> In the United Sates farms do not usually have names other than that
>>> of the current or perhaps former owner. The same applies to
>>> houses.
>>>
>>> bob gillis<robert...@verizon.net>
>>
>> How are they described in cadastral surveys?
>
>In New Jersey where I live, each municipality sets up a system of
>maps with Districts, Blocks and Lots. so our house is designated as
>District 8, Block 41114, Lot 302 which is located at 16 Shawnee
>Trail. Our property is also located by metes and bounds.
>
>In the PLSS, a piece of property would be described say as Township
>25 West, Range 15 North of Ohio Baseline, SW 1/4 , Section 14,
>This land would be a 1/4 square mile piece, It may also have a
>municipality name, subdivision, road or Street name and number.
OK, here a piece of land might be described as "Portion 5 of Lot 3
of Subdivision 1 of the farm Rietfontein No 323"
Rietfontein would be the original name of the farm, which doesn't
change in the description, but if one of the subdividions is named
by a subsequent owner, that name is not recorded by the deeds
office.
Bob LeChevalier
Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>
>> Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>>>
>>>> A practical example: a friend who I help with his research has an
>>>> ancestor who was (probably) born in Elbert Co, GA. Numerous
>>>> censuses record him living in Franklin Co, GA, and he (probably)
>>>> died in Hart Co, GA. But the farm where he was born, lived, and
>>>> died was the same farm - the boundaries changed as Georgia
>>>> reorganized and subdivided its counties.
>>> The counties may have changed but did the name of the farm?
>>
>> What name is that? The Sammons place?
>
>You didn't say.
My point is that there was no place name.
>> All I know is that he lived in an area called "Reed Creek" and that
>> this area changed county names as Georgia evolved its counties.
>> I've never seen any reference to any of the places being named,
>> other than for the person who lived there.
>
>If I've followed you correctly you have at various times Reed Creek,
>Elbert Co, Reed Creek, Franklin Co and Reed Creek, Hart Co. but it's
>still Reed Creek.
That name was meaningful after he died, and it still exists, though
I think it is now considered part of Hartwell, GA (but I don't know
if it is part of the incorporated area or what the boundaries are,
so even today, I would not know whether to put a birth as being
"Reed Creek" or "Hartwell". I have no idea if it was a recognized
place name much before the civil (there was a Reed Creek Baptist
Church, so probably there was a creek named Reed Creek. But I don't
know if the farm was located on the creek, or when the creek got its
name.
OK, but that example meaningfully depends on having more than one
location called Grasscroft that has historically been around long
enough to be genealogically meaningful (the New England area
probably has such place names clearly defined in the records which
may be why the genealogical society values them).
But I have no idea whether there was at one time more than one place
called "Reed Creek" and I have no idea whether that name meant
anything as a place name in 1830-1840, much less what boundaries
apply. I can find the boundaries of Hart County today, and Reed
Creek is a point on a Google map, but I don't know the historical
county boundaries involved. Censuses for the family give county
names, and nothing more specific, so I know approximately where the
family lived in each census, but it is family lore that says that
the family did not move and lived on one particular farm even though
the county names changed.
I certainly do form hypotheses about families, and check those
hypotheses using various techniques, but place names haven't been
particularly useful to me.
Americans I have researched have generally been too mobile, and
place names and associated boundaries have been too changeable, for
a place name to be relevant for research purposes for more than one
or possibly two generations. But relatives always seem to want to
know what the places they lived are called now, so they can find
them on a map, and possibly drive through on a holiday trip.
This has not been the case with my research of my French ancestors,
where I can read of an ancestor whose baptism was recorded in a
certain parish in the 1600s and know that the parish today is
probably the same as it was then, with the same boundaries, and that
half the people now living in the parish or more are my distant
cousins because some family members lived in the same parish for a
half dozen generations or more, and sometimes in the same "village"
(which on Google maps might be a cluster or 3 or 4 farm buildings),
and seem to have cross-married with every other family of note.
There, I know that a Baschet/Bachet in that parish probably is a
distinct line from a Baschet in the next parish over (though
probably there was a common ancestor back before baptism records
were kept, since I haven't found the family name outside of a 20
miles radius back in that era).
lojbab