Warning about Standardisation of "East Indies"
This isn't actually a question but is a warning to anyone working in FS FamilyTree who finds a profile where a place name includes the element "East Indies". I found one earlier today where the displayed birthplace was "Poona, East Indies" (or similar) but the standardised place name had ended up as "Dutch East Indies".
In all honesty, I'd have missed that problem if the displayed place name had been one of many, but Poona (aka Poonah, aka Pune now) is a name I know well so seeing it standardised to somewhere to "Dutch East Indies" was obvious to me - but presumably not to the person who did the standardising. (Which is fair enough)
The source of the confusion is that the term "East Indies" is a "moveable feast". In a British context in (say) the 19th century or earlier, it basically means anywhere in the Indies but not the West Indies. So it's India and all points east. Therefore, a census reference (e.g.) to a birth in "Poona, East Indies" actually means "Poona, India" and not "Poona, Dutch East Indies".
That profile may have been the only one to get standardised to the wrong part of the world (Dutch East Indies), or it may not. Just bear it in mind...
Answers
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Do you have a link to the record that was standardized incorrectly?
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@Maile L - I don't actually. What I did was submit a request to the Placename team to add the missing spelling as an alternative name for Pune, which they actioned a few weeks ago. Adding the missing spelling was a case of "Fix the bit that's obviously wrong, else we'll be on a loser from the start".
I can't remember for certain whether it looked like a manually chosen standardisation or a 'bot choice. Hopefully, if it was a manual choice then the correct version will appear in the list to be chosen.
If it was a 'bot choice then I'm not sure what can be done, as there actually is a village called Poona in Indonesia (once called Dutch East Indies). Hmmm.
For info - even in English language sources, there is a variety of spellings for many placenames in India from the era of the East India Company and the Raj - a combination of both genuine and wilful ignorance and attempting to render names for the same place from different languages / dialects, I guess. And many of the "East Indies" references that I have seen come in British parish registers or censuses, where no Indian naming expertise can be expected.
So thanks for the thought - if I do find a 'bot issue with "East Indies" as a name in the future, I will raise it - providing I can work out a sensible suggestion to make!
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Thanks @Adrian Bruce1.
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