I would like to agree with those who indicate that the location should
be referenced as it was during the time of the event. If the event
occurred in 1700, the reference to the location should be entered as it
was known at that time.
Remember, we are genealogists. We are basically historians for a
particular family/s. We are also detectives, as we have to dig to get
the data as it pertained to the event and time it occurred.
It was previously mentioned that whomever is recording the events can
enter the data in whichever format they wish to, which I agree with.
Just remember, be consistent with the way you enter your data. Enter
your data the same way as much as possible.
Remember when entering your data, who is the audience for which this
data is for? Yourself? Immediate family? In both cases, if you put in
information about Burroughs, your audience should know what your talking
about. But if your audience is outside your immediate family, say
someone across the pond. Are they going to know what you mean when you
have Burroughs in your data? Do you wish to be answering a string of
emails about what something means because someone is not familiar with
your culture? Or even sometime in the future, you forgot why you did it
a particular way.
In most software packages where you enter the location information, you
are allowed free form entry, which allows you to enter data in your
personally selected format. But, if you vary from the genealogy
standards, and then try to use a module like GeoCoding, your program
might not return the results you expected or nothing at all. You will
then wonder why you are having problems.
You could say, it's all a double edged sword. Enter the data the way
you wish to, and expect complications further down the line, or use your
software to the best you can. Take advantage of putting as many notes
in as possible, explain exactly what you mean. Use Geocoding if you can.
Randy Feezor
**Leave not doubt, spell it out**
On 8/4/2019 9:52 AM, Scott Hall wrote:
I wanted to chime into this conversation because I find entering place
names to be a challenge as well, and Pennsylvania is a perfect example.
First, I concur with those who say enter the place name as it was at
the time of the event. Those who enter the modern address and add the
historic address in the notes have an interesting alternative, but
it's not the preferred method as place names (even modern ones) can
change.
But, that's not really what I wanted to talk about. Early on I
discovered a challenge when more than one "root name" exists within a
larger administrative division. For example, in Lycoming County,
there is both Muncy Township, and Muncy, a borough. Muncy, the
borough, is part of Muncy Creek Township, not Muncy Township. This is
far from an isolated case -- numerous counties in Pennsylvania have a
township and a borough with the same name that are separate
administrative divisions and where the borough is not located within
the township.
Now, the commonly accepted place recording convention, as far as I
understand it, is that descriptors like village, town, county, etc.
are not recorded unless officially part of the name. Even New York
City should be recorded as "New York" with the appropriate county (New
York, Bronx, Richmond, etc.) recorded--but that's a different discussion.
Back to Pennsylvania....when you come across a record that simply says
"Muncy", which Muncy is it? Let's say you can figure it out...you
know it's the Township. Now, generally you'd record it as Muncy,
Lycoming, Pennsylvania, USA -- but if you do, when you (or someone
else) comes back to it -- which Muncy did you mean?
So, to solve this problem, I've started to include the word "Township"
in the record -- "Muncy Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania,
USA". And, of course, that means I also have to use "Borough" --
"Muncy Borough, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, USA". But what if
Muncy was a city? Would I enter "Muncy City, Lycoming County,
Pennsylvania"? Or perhaps, "Muncy (city), Lycoming County,
Pennsylvania, USA"? I'd prefer not.
Perhaps only Townships should get that designation, as generally I
found that they are the one entity that tends to bear the same name as
another administrative division. But in much of the northeast, like
New York, there are no townships, only towns, which often have
villages or cities bearing the same name contained within them (e.g.
Canandaigua is a city wholly contained with the Town of Canandaigua).
While in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, or much of the midwest
people may refer to a township by saying the word "township", in New
York they certainly don't. No one says Canandaigua town, nor
Canandaigua city. So, same problem.
This latter issue is less significant than the Pennsylvania problem,
though, as at least one entity is contained with another. But, in
Pennsylvania, as I pointed out, they do not always bear this relationship.
Thoughts?
On Tue, Jul 30, 2019 at 5:47 PM Connie Laubach <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Trying to decide how to input the location names – I have
townships that are made up of villages and boroughs. How are
others handling it?
I have thought of the following:
Village, township, county, state, United States
or
township-village, country, state, United States (I like this as
all villages within the township would be listed together)
Thank you, Connie.
Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986>
for Windows 10
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