Brian: This is an excellent system I think I'll adopt. I notice Slawson's "Getting it Right" is silent on this point, but provides examples that use descriptors such as "City" or "County", especially when the city / town and county share the same name. I adopted the "four comma" approach when I switched to Legacy, principally because I got better verification from the GeoDB. I'm now of the opinion that the GeoDB be damned, adding "County" or "Township" helps avoid ambiguity.
I think the four comma approach is still a good alternative, but the "straw" that pushes me to modify it to an approach similar to yours is that I find it too common that the "city" is not often known, and in many cases may be the town or township. For example, a record for one of my ancestors may indicate an event that took place in Muncy, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Is that Muncy Borough or Muncy Township? How would you record it if you did not know? The trick in getting this right is knowing each state's govermental entity hierarchy. Having grown up in New York State, I am used to the Village inside a Town inside a County system. For example, I grew up just outside of Shortsville, a small incorporated village in the town of Manchester, which is located in Ontario County. Despite having a Shortsville mailing address and attedning the Manchester-Shortsville school system, I actually lived inside the neighboring town of Hopewell, within no incorporated village. So, if one were listing where I spend my childhood, it would be: Town of Hopewell, Ontario County, New York, USA While I could just say "Hopewell" and leave off town, it would become ambigous if I were referring to Manchester, the neighboring town where I went to school, as the Town of Manchester has within it a village also named Manchester. So, like the Muncy example, clarity come from listing like this: Village of Manchester (or just Manchester), Town of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, USA But here is the $64,000 question.... the "four comma" approach says city OR town, county, state, country. Is it then overkill to consistently use a five comma approach? A month ago I might of said yes, but now I say no. What do you think? In Massachusetts, where I live now, the system is similar, except there are no incorporated villages or any incorporated government below the town level. There are plenty of unincorporated villages and places, but the lowest level of government is the town. As with New York, towns are within counties, although some Massachusetts counties have been disbanded and exist only for historical geographic purposes (such as Hampden County). I currently live within the Town of Grafton, located in Worcester County. Thus the listing could be: Grafton, Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA Beacuse there is nothing lower than Grafton, it is probably not necessary to say "Town of Grafton". But now we have state-by-state variation, and that could get confusing. While Massachusetts is similar to Pennsylvania in that the town (MA) or township / borough (PA) is the lowest form of government, its different from that of NY, where villages are smaller that towns. So, although obvious, perhaps its better to say: Town of Grafton, Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA which would align the method with that of New York. Thoughts? Scott On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 3:48 PM, Brian L. Lightfoot <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm glad to see that I'm in line with the general consensus here, namely to > include the work "County" after the name of the county. I've observed that > this practice has evolved somewhat over the past decade. Seems originally > somebody thought the nice, clean method of "City, County, State, (optional > Country)" was the prescribed method. But I immediately saw a problem in that > many cities, townships, and counties all have the same name. For example, the > city of Mudville, in Mudville Township, in Mudville County. When you run > across some source that left out the critical location word and only provided > "Mudville, State" or "Mudville, Mudville, State" (as in Ancestry's 1880 > census reports), then are they talking the city of Mudville or the township > of Mudville. (Note to people across the pond either in the UK or the land > down under --- a township is not the same as a town. It is normally just a > geographic part of a County which is divided up into several townships.) > > The bottom line is that I enter my data in the following fashion. If it's the > city of Mudville, then I write "Mudville, Mudville County, State". If it is > the township of Mudville (which is not necessarily the same as the city > limits), then I write "Mudville Township, Mudville County, State". The > location description may look long but at least I know specifically what area > is being described. > > I've gotten lazy and leave out the "USA" part. Figure I don't know of anybody > in the EU that I'll be sending my family file to. > > > Brian in CA > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Kathy Meyer [mailto:[email protected]] > > Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 11:47 AM > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Legacy and County Names > > > > I was told at one time that you should always use the word "county" > > following the actual county name anytime you did not have a city to > > precede it; otherwise, as you stated, one would assume that it was the > > city name, even if you had the leading commas to separate fields. It > > was at some sort of conference or class and they said it was helpful > > to do that as a habit anyway, just to be very clear. I have not done > > that in the past and have not changed my database to reflect that but > > I thought it made very good sense. Wouldn't it be nice to simply have > > fields that are specifically for city or town, parish, county, state, > > country? Then those inadvertent errors would diminish; a lot of > > people don't even know to put in the commas to designate a missing > > field. > > > > Kathy > > > > On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Alan Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The previous genealogy program I used had you put "Co." after the > > > county name so you had place location of > > > Little Rock, Pulaski Co., Arkansas, USA > > > > > > However in the Legacy training and the Geo Database it does not use > > or > > > seam to like the "Co." on the end. Thus output was: Little Rock, > > > Pulaski, Arkansas, USA > > > > > > When I moved to Legacy I pulled "Co." off of everything as I found it > > > trying to follow the convention. Now in some of my reports and other > > > things I look back and think it might have been nice to have had the > > Co. > > > for the County. > > > > > > So my questions are: > > > > > > What is the reasoning Legacy does not put them on? > > > > > > Are there reasons not to have the Co. on the end? > > > > > > I did note in some reading that if you just have the county name then > > > your are supposed to put "Co." or something on the end so people > > don't > > > get confused and think it was a City. So why not allow it all the > > time. > > > > > > Anyone else just force it on? It means you can't use the default > > lookup > > > in the Geo Database. It certainly would be something easy to fix and > > > add as a feature to Legacy to have it put Co. on county names on if > > it > > > did not cause problems. > > > > > > Is there a research/genealogical reason not to do this? > > > > > > Anyone else ever run into this question? > > > > > > thoughts? > > > > > > thanks > > > > > > Alan > > > > > > > > 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 > > > 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
