Minor problem surfaced with correcting PLAC names data.

[SparkMan]

I just came across this problem while using the PLAC button (for lack
of a better word) located on the right end of the name area, and under
the "I" button. This came up when I was doing some corrections in
South Carolina prior to 1790 when there were no counties but Districts
(defined by the SC government) with occasional subdistricts. The
particular one was "Orangeburg District" where there is also an
Orangeburg County after 1790 with some people making it a District
instead of a County. Therefore, if I corrected the second (after
1790) to Orangeburg County using the button it changed ALL Orangeburg
Districts. I am glad I caught this before going to the next place
name so I was able to "Undo" and get them back to their correct naming
then use the line to change the name rather using the button.

Other than that, and numerous place names where there is a town and
county sharing a name but the town is not in the county of the name I
am having a much easier time of changing as many place name into the
correct form than I had previously.

Sparkgapper

[John Nairn]

Hi,

In theory (and as claimed in the documentation for place record editing), if you edit the place name in one record and that same place is used by other records, you will be warned about the pending change and have option to alter the way that change is recorded. For example, when I changed "Bennington, Bennington, VT, USA" used by three individuals in my file, I got this alert:

The name change to 'Bennington X, Bennington, VT, USA'
is a new place name for this file. Choose one option:

• 'Create' a new place record for 'Bennington X, Bennington, VT, USA'
• 'Change' name for place 'Bennington, Bennington, VT, USA' to
'Bennington X, Bennington, VT, USA' (which will change it in the
other events that cite this place too).
• 'Try Again' to choose a different or an existing place

Here "Create" will create new place record and only the current person will be linked to it. In contrast, "Change" will change the name for this place and therefore will change it for everyone linked to it. "Try Again" cancels the save process and lets you edit the place name if you want. If, however, that place is only used by one person (or one family), the place name will changed without asking you to make a choice. This change is only affected a single record and therefore should always be intended and safe.

Did you get that warning? If yes and you clicked "Change" it will change that place for everyone using it. If not, it might be a bug and I will double check. I could not tell exactly what you changed to be sure.

Perhaps you changed the name to a different place, but one that is already in the file. This change proceeds without an alert, however, is only changing the place in the person and is not changing anything in any place record or any other person of family. For example:

1. Say your file has place records for "Orangeburg County" and for "Orangeburg District"
2. Now go to a person with place name of "Orangeburg District". If you click the "PLAC button" you described (it is meant to be a compass), it will open the place record for "Orangeburg District" and you can use the "Referenced By" command to see all the people linked to that place.
3. Now back in the individual record. If you decide to change "Orangeburg District" to "Orangeburg County" what you have done is tell GEDitCOM II to link this one person to a different place record. It will do so, but the only change that is made is to that person. No place record or any other person of family is affected. But, if you click that "PLAC button" it will now open "Orangeburg County" instead of "Orangeburg District" and "Referenced By" on that place will show all new people - these will be different people. If you looked at your places and opened the "Orangeburg District" record, you will see it is unchanged and still links to all the previous people (minus the one you changed) and nothing else has changed.

Perhaps that is all that happened? In other words, the "PLAC button" link is linking to the place name currently in the place field and therefore it will link to a different place if that name is changed to another place already in the file (Hint: another way to open the place record on any place field is to control (or right) click on the field and choose "Open Place Record" from the pop-up menu.)

Two more options

1. I will look at the code and see if it might be possible to not be alerted of possible-unwanted changes.

2. Perhaps a clearer way to edit place names is in the place records themselves rather then in the PLAC fields of individuals and families. By this path, it is very clear that changing a place name is changing that for all people linked to the record.

[John Nairn, Developer]

I did find one bug. If you change the place name in an individual to a family and that place record is linked to EXACTLY one individual and one family, GEDItCOM II 1.7, build 3 will change the place name in the place record and in both records linked to that place. This change may be unintended (i.e., you may only want one place to change).

The bug is fixed for the next posting. It only happens in the above case. If the place is linked to more than one individual or more than one family, it will always catch your change before too much is changed.

John

[William G. Bates]

Yes! I did get that warning for the SECOND method (Record) of changing but NO warnings at all when using the FIRST method (Button). I guess my explanation was not clear enough and was only advising this would happen so others would not inadvertently change all instances when only want to change a single instance.

Sparkman

[John Nairn]

But I am confused because clicking the button you mentioned (the "compass" button to the right of the place field) is a link to record and is not an option for changing data?

If, however, you edit the data and THEN click the button, the field (not the button) will try to save the change before linking to the record. This will warn you before it ever changes more than one record (except the bug I mentioned in the follow up if the place that was changed was linked to exactly one individual and one family, in which case it would change both those records without asking).

I can tell you handling every possible click a user might follow is a real challenge for the programmer (it is hard to anticipate everything). Here the click wants to link, but the field wants to change data and ask for verification from the user. When these goals conflict, sometimes it does not get it right. It would very helpful if you could outline a specific example on step by step sequence where it changed more then one record without asking.

Thanks,
John

[William G. Bates]

That is EXACTLY the way I an batch correcting the place names.

Bring up an individual card containing a place name to be changed.
Click on the "compass button" on the right side of the place name field (name comes up as: "Marion, NC"
edit the place name on the drop down card, (change to read: "Marion County, North Carolina, USA"
then click the "red dot" and all records that contain the exact original place name (Marion, NC) to the changed name.
After the name is changed, the corrected name comes up on the index appropriately placed.
I have a place name column on my Index for the three primary record types with one of the columns selected.
In the above example, EXACT means it will not change a name that has even one space (character-space-number-etc) different including two spaces instead of one.
The major difference correcting it here is that there is no "auto fill" and it does not ask about "new name". But, by the same token, you have to be careful about mistakes as well as the mentioned town/county anomaly.

So, basically, the proper way to change/correct a place name would be to edit the place name field on the individual card before clicking on the compass button?

Sparkman