Error in locations

RoyCates

You report the below error in data for Robert Dewitt Cates LT44-B2k

Weakley County TN and Obion County TN are adjacent in NW Tennessee. Not 134 miles apart! Obion is a town in Obion County,TN

Please remove this:

Conflict-free Data

• This person had life events in Weakley, Tennessee, United States, then in Obion, Tennessee, United States, and then in Weakley, Tennessee, United States again. These places are 134 miles away, making this unlikely. This may indicate a bad merge.

Gordon Collett

The data quality routine is a quality checker for both a Family Tree profile and the databases that are linked to the profile. I'm finding that routine is finding more errors in the databases than on profiles I've carefully worked on. You have run across an error that is very interesting looking.

To determine distances, I assume the routine uses the latitude and longitude found in the Places database. And the error flagged for the Weakley/Obion problem was flagged correctly and it is good that you are reporting it. However it is not an error on the profile but rather in the Places database.

Here is the entry for Obion, Tennessee, United States which the standard (which is what the data quality routine looks at) for Obion County:

Here is the entry for Weakley, Tennessee, United States:

Although the county boundaries are correct, the latitude and longitude for the county were entered incorrectly. Currently they are 35.2644, -87.1886 and according to Wikipedia they should be 36.29, -88.72. I'll go report this. It looks like the incorrect co-ordinates are actually for the village of Weakley in Giles County. Kind of an understandable slip up.

Good catch!

Gordon Collett

Oh, I should mention that the easiest way to determine what is going on with these distance error flags and whether there might a problem with the information in the Places database about a standard or if a place name on a profile is linked to an incorrect standard is to take a look at the Timeline map:

For Robert, those two southernmost events should be right next to the two events farthest left instead of where they are.

I think the quality score is fine if people moved a succession of places but doesn't like it when a person bounces back and forth between two places that are rather far apart.

russellwaltgeorge1

The Places team corrected the location for Weakly County. FYI the Places Team does not monitor this forum. In the future, if you has similar issues with a place, we suggest you submit a request to resolve this. See below. We appreciate your interest in FamilySearch.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-correct-or-edit-a-place-in-familysearch-places

Rhonda Budvarson

@Gordon Collett thank you!! I dug through this, thinking the places was focused on the town and not the county. But all the standardized places were county based. You rock!!