IRISH ADDRESSES

Mór Droch Seán

Ireland is, I think, somewhat unique in that it has geographical units called "townlands". There are over 60,000 of them! You can find out more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townland

The problem so far as FamilySearch is concerned is that most townlands show up as being invalid when trying to put in someone's place of residence. Let me give you an example. My wife comes from a townland called "Cullane" which is in County Mayo, not far from the town of Swinford (FamilySearch only accepts the old spelling of "Swineford" by the way). Her father's name is Patrick Gallagher. In the 1901 census there were 170 people of that name in County Mayo, over 20 of whom were from "Swineford". You can see the difficulty that this causes in trying to find the right person. (Incidentally, there are 3,353 Gallaghers in the county in the same census). In our case, because FamilySearch is collaborative, this often causes frustration with more than one Gallagher ending up in the wrong family.

So - can something be done about this?

Another issue relates to a county which is often called by two different names - Derry or Londonderry. It may seem petty - and people can sometimes be a bit precious about it - but there are historical and cultural reasons for this. FamilySearch only allows "Londonderry". I think it would be straightforward to permit either option.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

There are a few threads about needed corrections to Irish placenames. One that I started https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/149021/error-report-placename-standardization#latest and I know there are several others including this one: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/528196#Comment_528196

Adrian Bruce1

@Mór Droch Seán said

" ... Another issue relates to a county which is often called by two different names - Derry or Londonderry. It may seem petty - and people can sometimes be a bit precious about it - but there are historical and cultural reasons for this. FamilySearch only allows "Londonderry". I think it would be straightforward to permit either option."

This is already possible. You need to exploit the fact that the Place that you enter and the Place that it standardises to, need not be quite the same. This is not a cheat or an error - it's how FamilyTree is designed to work.

I find that the best way to do this is to enter the desired placename in its standard form first. So, for instance, enter a placename of "Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom" and let it standardise to that value. I always then save it, to have something to work on in case of finger trouble. Thus:

(It does allow "Derry" for the city, it appears...)

Now, edit that Placename by deleting the appropriate bit - you will get "Derry, County Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom" in red beneath the box - click on that and you get this:

The Place of Residence is what I want; it is still standardised to the County Londonderry name (there is only one county name available because there's only one standard); but when you save the item, the placename (I call it the Display Name) reads "Derry, County Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom", as I wanted. To all intents and purposes, this is then exactly what you wanted. I hope...

Mór Droch Seán

Thank you - I'll give it a go.