Feature request

[theboo...@gmail.com]

This may be asking too much, John. Sorry.

I'm sure we all have examples like this one.

A bloke was born in 1908 in Croydon, Surrey, England.

He died in 2005 in Croydon, Greater London, England.

Identical place, different county.

I know I can give Croydon multiple names to reflect these sorts of changes and indicate the dates for which they are relevant.

But, so far as I can see, I can only have the top version show in any place. I can either have him being born, and dying, in Croydon, Surrey, or in Croydon, Greater London, each of which is wrong once.

Would it be possible to choose which version is wanted in a particular instance without having two, or more, separate place names for the same place>

Mick

[Jeff Armstrong]

Local boundaries shift with time, especially over such a long life. I'm guessing he died in the same house that he was born in.

What you are recording is not just a life event but a cultural/geographical event too. In family history these also need to be recorded so that who follow will have the information.

I would be digging into the history of Croydon to find out when its boundaries were moved from Surry into Greater London. I would then create extra Location Record/s showing this history. In fact I won't be surprised if you find there were several 'moves' over this bloke's life.

If you want (and I think you should) you add a note that the two 'different' locations are actually the same place.
I don't think this is really a lack in the software

[theboo...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the thoughts. I do, indeed, implement the ideas you suggest anyway.

I agree, it's not a lack in the software. So far as I know, the same things applies to other programs as well. There are numerous workarounds, but all a bit clunky, in may view

It'd just be nice if such a thing could be done.

Mick

[John Nairn, Developer]

These might be similar ideas. GEDitCOM II (through the Place Advisor) currently lists Croydon as

    UK, England, Greater London, London, London Borough of Croydon, Croydon

but does not have the 1908 version in Surrey. Places do very very complicated when you factor in changes over time but you can document them within your file. Two options are:

1. You can create one place for modern Croydon and link both birth and death to that place. Within your place record for Croydon, you can add new names (with dates) and/or a large number of place facts including things like boundary change, government change, and date of formation. You can also add notes and sources to that one place record about historical changes.

2. You could create two places — one in Surrey and one in Greater London — and link birth to first and death to second. It would look like different places in the individual records, but you could document they are the same with notes and sources.

I think people who like maps might prefer the first (it is one place in geography). Historians might like the second one better. You could also do a hybrid method such as adopt option 1 but then attach a note to the birth event that Croydon was in Surrey at the time of his birth.

John

[theboo...@gmail.com]

Thanks John.

Indeed, places can get very complicated changing names, counties, states, and even countries. But they are still the same place.

So, for me, when a place was in Surrey, I'd like any report to show that; and when it's in Greater London, I'd like the report to show that as well. There are many places in London (but not Croydon) that were in Surrey (or Middlesex, or Kent), then from 1889 they were in the county of London, then from 1965 they are in Greater London. Of course notes etc can be used to explain, but the headline is the place name in the report or on the screen

Currently, the only way to get reports showing what I'd like is to have multiple places for the same place, each showing the relevant county or whatever. This greatly enlarges the place table.

As you say in your item 1, you can have multiple names or the same place. You might have two or more places names with all the related info for that place. And that is a terrific feature, but it doesn't show in reports. It also reduces the number of places.in the database and that is great

What I was asking is: would it be possible to use item 1 methodology, and for one event specify that I use, say, name version 1 for this event, and name version 2 for that event? 

Best

Mick