Why does it surprise anyone that Richovice does not match a place in Bohemia?
"This person has a birth place of Richovice, Bohemia, which does not match the place Bohemia. James Plass, "United States, Census, 1940" Places is not complete regarding the historical boundaries of Germany, Poland, and other places in the Germanic world. James Plass and others from this region of Europe struggled to keep track of the borders during the tumultuous period from the Unification of Germany in 1870 throught the Fall of Nazi Germany in 1945. Has the places team found enough data storage space to enter all the changes listed in the historical gazetteers that are still in existence?
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Actually I, as another user, haven't been surprised at anything the Data Quality Checker is flagging. They have all been very obvious errors on a Family Tree profile that I should have seen but didn't or very obvious deficiencies or errors on an indexed record or in the Places database. Errors on the profile I fix. Errors or deficiencies in indexed records I either just dismiss or correct if the record is editable and I'm in the mood. Errors or deficiencies in the Places database I report if it is critical or if I'm in the mood or again just dismiss.
The current state of Germany in the Places database has been reported several times and people on Places Authority team have posted that they are aware of the concerns and are working on improving things. If there are particular places you need improved, you should go to the database at https://www.familysearch.org/en/research/places/ and use the link to suggest improvements so that your places get higher on the priority list.
The initial database they apparently used to initially create the Places database clearly had a lot of limitations and depending on the area you look at, they have been working hard to improve the database Since their apparent goal is to have every spot on earth be fully described will all their names, jurisdictions, and historical time periods (within reasonable and useful limits) and Germany is a relatively small spot on the globe, just 0.07% of Earth's landmass, I'm sure storage is not an issue.
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Looking at your example, it does bring up a scenario I have not run across before. Routines in FamilySearch generally run on the standard linked to a place name. Usually in the middle of a routine that linked standard name is what will show but it looks like the Data Quality flags instead are showing the display place name as seen on the profile page.
Looking at James' record, one sees this:
Looking that NUMIDENT record triggering the flag, the source shows this:
That single word followed a comma is suspicious. It suggests that the birthplace given in the source is not linked to any kind of standard at all because standard place names do not end in a comma. Checking the Places database does show that Bohemia does not exist as a top level place name in the database but only as a region in some other country.
This means that although the flag reads "This person has a birth place of Richovice, Bohemia, which does not match the place Bohemia," what is probably being compared is Řichowitz, Taus, Bohemia, Austria and no place at all. I would like one of the engineers that monitors this board to confirm if that is truly the case or if I am mistaken.
If I am correct, this is not really a problem with the Places database but rather a problem with the NUMIDENT sources which cannot be edited but need to have a proper standard place linked to the places in it. Until the index is fixed, then all that can be done is to dismiss the flag.
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