Place Name Spelling Variations

StoddardDianne1

It would be helpful if variations in spellings would come up for the standardized locations. If the parish, town, etc. is not put in exactly to match the standardized list, it reverts to the county. This makes it easy to have records attached to the wrong person because the jurisdiction is too large.

Paul W

I suppose this would work if you could "teach the computer" every possible variant of a particular place name. Alternatively, if you don't know the exact spelling, input the place name in conjunction with wildcards. (e.g., Pens*lvan* - not for a town / parish, I know, but the first example that comes to mind that would affect me personally!)

Gordon Collett

Spelling variants do work fine if the variant is included in the database information for the place name. For example, Digernes, Stord, Hordaland, Norway has these variants:

If I type in any of them, I get the place:

If you go to the places database at https://www.familysearch.org/research/places/ , find the place you need alternate names added to, and click on Improve This Place, you should be able to request them and have them added eventually.

Adrian Bruce1

Just to be clear, it's not just genuine but perhaps obscure medieval alternatives and genuine translations that get into the Places Database as the Alternate Names that @Gordon Collett mentions. It's also typical misspellings - or at least, it was on at least one occasion for me, when I successfully asked for "Middleborough" to go in as an Alternate for "Middlesbrough".

Gordon Collett

They do try to make it work. And there is room for as many alternate names as needed, like this set:

Or this set for New York:

So just request away with all the variants you think a place needs. I have, also, seen as Adrian mentions common misspellings added.