Thank you so much for the detailed reply, Ron. That helps explain something that has confused me. Some records show an ancestor as being located in England, while others, use "Great Britain" or "UK" or "United Kingdom". I really need to brush up on the history as the time is coming when I will need to venture further than ancestry.com to find sources. I'm clicking through to your links and bookmarking them to read as soon as I have a spare bit of time. And when I put all this together into a "book" form for family, I want to include history. Knowing the history of the places our ancestor's came from makes them more "real." To me, at least.
I haven't found the Geo Location database helpful so far, because if I don't have at least part of a county name, it doesn't give me one or several possibilities, except on rare occasions. Guess I was hoping for an easier way, but so far, I've used a web search for county, if it's in my direct line. The others I leave empty. As I'm working to clean up my location list (Thank Heaven for the "combine" function) I started using the commas to indicate place. I don't really understand why, but it seemed to be the thing recommended. Is there a useful purpose for this? Does it help Gedcom transfers? Or is it useful in Legacy searches? If not, it is a pain because it pops the location to the top of the list and when I combine, I have to scroll up to the top to find the place where I need to combine it. Peggy >________________________________ > From: Ron Ferguson <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] >Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 5:50 AM >Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Cleaning up Location List (Geo options) > >Hi Peggy, > >Your problems with the UK locations are common, and pretty well entirely due >to the 'American' Four Field Convention, in particular to the false >assumption that is applies worldwide. It does not! Specifically it does not >apply to the locations of the UK. I address this question in my Blog at >http://bit.ly/8VDqTc and I would also recommend a visit to >http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~jimella/counties.htm for a full description >of the history of our locations. Do also remember that until 1921/22 the >whole of Ireland was part of the UK, and that the Isle Of Man and the >Channel Isles are not, and never have been. > >Unfortunately the compilers of the the Geo-Location Data Base decided that >all locations should be based on the 4 field convention – surprise, >surprise! It does not work for us. Their assumption that the UK and/or GB >are countries is incorrect. Great Britain is a geographic description of >England, Scotland and Wales, whilst the United Kingdom of Great Britain and >Northern Ireland is best regarded as an alliance or federation of countries >c.f. the European Community, we would not say that a location is Germany, >Europe, nor do we say Scotland, UK. > >The basic construct of a (fairly) modern e.g. English location is house, >street, district, town/city, county, England. So, how do we get the >Geo-Locator to work for our countries, since this clearly does not work? For >the purpose of using this tool *only* add ",UK" or ",GB" after "England" in >the main location - afterwards make sure that the location is correct by >deleting it afterwards. > >Personally, I do not use the Geo-Locator, I simply put the town in Google >Maps, if I need further information. > >Ron Ferguson >http://www.fergys.co.uk/ > > > > >From: Marg Strong >Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 1:45 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: [LegacyUG] Cleaning up Location List (Geo options) > >I had hoped that when I installed the geo database, I could use the "button" >and it would give me one or more of the missing parts, such as county, or >province. If I enter something into the field it will give me suggestions >based on what I'm entering, but no help when I don't have any idea of what >to enter. If I've already entered the full location, it will pull that up; >but not for locations I haven't entered. > >When the source - right now those I'm finding on ancestry - lists a >location, it doesn't always include the county or province. The places I >know work out, because I know the county, but many are not familiar. How do >you find the complete information to enter into your location database? And >where do you check the information for older locations, where county lines, >for instance might have changed? Is there a website that gives good >information on United States and Canadian counties. > > > >I don't know if the locations in Ireland or England (I have a few) should >have four fields and if not, where would I put them? How do I know the >equivalent to towns, townships, counties for different countries? Are there >good websites out there to help? I've used google, but the results aren't >always clear and it is more time taking than it would be if there were a >website dedicated to this. > > > >Also how do you include the township information? I've been adding it to the >city (if there is one) in parenthesis. Is that going to be a problem >somewhere in the future? > > > >Thanks! >Peggy (feeling more and more like a newbie every day) > > > > >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 >Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on >our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). >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 Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). 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