Why are certain Place Names prefixed with a number ?

Re Searching

Results have started to appear which have numerals preceding the Place Name.

Some have a set of numerals then a comma then the place name, other have no comma.

Is this indicative of a Fault ?

genthusiast

I don't know if this is related: Why is Shropshire known as Salop?

Salop is an old name for Shropshire, historically used as an abbreviated form for post or telegrams, it is thought to derive from the Anglo-French "Salopesberia". ... Following the Local Government Act 1972, Salop became the official name of the county.

So maybe these are post addresses?

Re Searching

@genthusiast

Interesting background.

I can't see any suggestion that they're postal addresses in the records.

I speculate that an incorrect term has been specified in either the stored data or the query and what we're seeing is a database index number, or possibly the genesis of the "Line Number" data I mentioned in another post which could be used to group multiple coincident baptisms which I mentioned in yet another post.

genthusiast

Yes, I agree - no suggestions leave it to speculation

As well, I wonder about definition of Originating System VR? Vital Records? Again I speculate...

Paul W

The original post appears to relate to a bug. Regardless, perhaps a moderator could escalate this issue?

Re Searching

More Speculation... and,... just more,

If the place name data had been imported from TSV or similar, and an anomaly caused a delimiter to be missed, then two fields would be merged. But then all successive values would be left shifted by one place, so the data would be obviously wrong. It would require a additonal delimiter to be included in a value before the numerals in the source and then another to be removed after to get the place data and the previous field to combine and keep the place data in the correct location.

I wonder if the data has been collected by a routine, and that under certain specific cases a code error has caused the place data to be prefixed with a pointer index value.

There are many records where the numerals are in a sequence for records that are connected to related persons.

Unfortunately an exact search for "1142 Shrewsbury, Salop, Eng" fails to perform an exact search and just returns 75K results for "Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, United Kingdom" and others

Similarly an exact search for "???? Shrewsbury, Salop, Eng" does the same or produces "Something Went Wrong"

Without a mechansim to locate these records effectively, it will be very difficult to collect enough data to offer a considered hypothesis for the cause.

Re Searching

I have raised a Q&A question regarding the performance of search for place names containing numerals.

https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/106109/searching-for-place-names-containing-numerals-produces-unexpected-results

Experiments show that certain queries produce specific and reproduceable results which are determined by matching content that is not easy for the user to appreciate.

Re Searching

Another unexplained numeric prefix in record : https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:C6BH-J96Z

Birthplace: 4338, St. Mary, Islington, London, Eng

Study of the register contained in RG4 Piece 4662: Dr Williams´ Library Registry, Birth Certificates, 1812-1817 shows that the numeric prefix in these records is actually the index number on the page in the register.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:C6B4-5Y3Z shows prefix 222

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:C6B4-7BN2 shows prefix 223

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:C6B4-JSZM shows prefix 224

So, although there is an error putting the prefix in the "Place" data item, the index number data is useful to relate the records.

Unfortunately, there is no way to search for the prefix data, either because it is not actually contained in the "Place" data item, and it is simply being added as a prefix when the record is prepared for display, or because numeric information is being stripped from the search criterion.

Paul W

@LDS Search Test

I think what is needed here is a moderator to take some interest in the subject and escalate your issue to a FamilySearch specialist team.

(Just noticed, I said as much on 16 October! Maybe the moderators don't visit "Other" in the same way they do in the case of the "FamilySearch Community", "Family Tree" and "Search" sections.)