New FamilySearch place

Marcel Blais

Hello FamilySearch place team,

I have tried to add a new FamilySearch place in Ontario, Canada

Saint Joseph, Orleans, Ottawa-Carleton, Ontario, Canada

I have this message ?

"This name contains an invalid character. Display names can only contain letters."

I put parenthesis and FamilySearch time line number below to help the FamilySearch new place team to add the right biger place of Saint Joseph

I know that we cannot enter it in the field of the new place to add.

1830-1841 Saint Joseph d’Orleans, (Carleton, Haut-Canada, Amérique coloniale britannique 5954649)

1841-1867 Saint Joseph, (Orleans, Carleton, Canada-Ouest, Amérique coloniale britannique 9159696)

1867-1969 Saint Joseph, (Orleans, Carleton, Ontario, Canada 9159697)

1869-2001 Saint Joseph, (Orleans, Ottawa-Carleton, Ontario, Canada 9159698)

2001-today Saint Joseph, (Orleans, Ottawa-Carleton, Ontario, Canada 9159695)

So my question is why I have this invalid character message with:

Saint Joseph, Orleans, Ottawa-Carleton, Ontario, Canada

Can you fix that problem ?

I have tried in French and English

From Marcel

Áine Ní Donnghaile

@Marcel Blais Your question may gain more visibility if you post in the Places Group.

Help us improve our database of places. Unable to find a place in the Family Tree? Find a place that is misspelled or has other data errors? Come here to share those issues so they can be fixed.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

The Place Name field on that popup is meant to contain just the place's name, not the entire jurisdiction. The placename you're trying to suggest is just Saint Joseph. The rest of it goes in the District or Province box.

(When there are different versions for different time periods, you'll just need to pick one.)

Gordon Collett

The "This place name contains an invalid character. Display names can only contain letters." Is triggered by using a comma in the place name. The message is not totally correct because place names can contain hyphens.

Re Searching

The name contains an invalid character. Display names can only contain letters.

What about Martha's Vineyard ?

or Westward Ho!

Also, there are many existing places of worship that have apostrophes, e.g. St Paul's , St James' etc. yet we are prohibited by the engine from adding any new ones with apostrophes.

That's incongruous !

Sorry; Due to totally unnecessary restrictions I would have to say : Thats incongruous

Marcel Blais

Thank you the parish has been created. 🙂

Re Searching

There is also a place in Canada called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!

The Wikipedia page for this place has a map showing it's location. Significantly, underneath the map is the message "Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 526: Unable to find the specified location map definition: "Module:Location map/data/Canada Eastern Quebecfoundloca" does not exist."

Perhaps the issue is not with the New Place Name tool itself, but from the 3rd party modules that it is using which seem to be unsuited to the task.