Legacy is a bit behind the curve on this - an observation, not a criticism - and perhaps it's time to be proactive. We do have to work now with what we have now, but our genealogies and family histories will be read in the future. Durable information should certainly be in standard and durable form, but only when practicable. Often it will be best to separate the standard from the durable and go both ways. Coercing an address into a "best fit" in 4 fields makes good use of present software, balances the irritation of double commas against that of often empty fields and discarded information, while providing tractable data for search and print routines. Where an address needs preservation in another format, the answer is a note field of some sort. But what is the future? Addresses are impermanent unless as historical records. For most purposes, we can now specify a location in forms which will not change, and with more precision.
Go to Google Maps, find a place of interest, right click a spot and click "What's Here?" in the resulting drop down menu. The location of the pin in the map or satellite view is then at your left and/or in the map location box above. I was born at 52.327044,-2.292482. Entering that gets the right spot, accurate to the location of the bed, though the house, attached cottages and forge were demolished and replaced a few years ago. Still, the modern location gives a ready index to earlier satellite shots, plans and maps, to where our garden ended at 52.326932,-2.290433, and to the location of the garden path my grandfather ran up while being machine gunned by the German bomber which left the bullet hole in the forge door. 52.702593,-3.911324 is (probably) the boulder cave where I spent a memorable mountain thunderstorm night on Cader Idris and 53.008396,-4.147801 marks Ogof Owain Glyndwr, the one on the cliff face where I also slept, albeit lightly. Perhaps no descendant of mine will wish to follow me, but the possibilities should be obvious to a family historian. Legacy Geo Locations were invaluable for names, distances and directions to nearby parishes and other places to search when I was really struggling to find ancestors. As noted by someone else, they also (occasionally) gave locations to defunct place names. Geo database users were requested to contribute names and locations. That could be a major service to genealogists and historians, forming a very efficient database if reduced to just the name and coordinates. I have used IGI data and parish locations to plot name spread against time in very informative graphics. There are other uses. kb Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
