Example of why I standardize "all the way"

dontiknowyou

Birth place looks okay, but isn't.

So I fix it.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

And here's why your reasoning is ...incomplete, at best.

Wayland K Adams

I am sure there can be many examples where place names and standardized names are not correct. The important thing is that when entering a place name, that you ensure that the standardized name is correct. Usually done by selecting from the list of standardized names. Here is an article about entering place names.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-enter-dates-and-places-into-family-tree

In case you can't find a correct standardized place, you can suggest a new one. Here is the article for doing that.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-request-a-new-place-in-the-database-of-standardized-places

dontiknowyou

My point being:

I always click on the place name itself to inspect it. And, so that I and other contributors know the inspection has been done, in most instances I also select the standard in the place name field rather than selecting the shadow standard.

I find doing this significantly improves Find results and hints, and nearly eliminates future bad merges or mistaken relationships.

Gordon Collett

I agree it is perfectly correct and very important to make sure a place is standardized correctly. Checking this can be done on the Timeline map, by hovering over the text on the detail page and checking the tool tip, or by opening the editing box. And, yes, being standardized correctly does help with the Find, Hints, and Possible Duplicate routines.

Just make sure you differentiate between two completely different situations:

• Not being standardized
• Being standardized incorrectly

In the following images, both of the top two examples are standardized. One is incorrectly standardized while the other is correctly standardized. But in both the place name is acceptably, if incompletely, entered and in both the place name is fully and completely standardized! Otherwise the entry would appear as in the third example. That is the only one that is not standardized!

Julia Szent-Györgyi

And my point is, neither of those two places in my screenshot is a "shadow standard" -- and yet one has the dratted icon in the old interface, the other does not.

In other words, selecting a label from the database rather than keeping your own typing tells other contributors exactly nothing. They can't know what language you had the interface set to, compared to themselves.

Oh, and there is no need to click anything in order to verify that the associated standard is correct. Just hover over the conclusion and the tooltip will tell you exactly what was chosen.