Time line place movable

LegacyUser

Joseph Paul Marcel Blais said: Hello, when we go on time line on Familysearch.org for an ancestor and we go on satellite then we see the bulb showing many even of our ancestor life. I notice that the bulb may be a little distance of the exact place. Can Familysearch may allow us to move the bulb in the right place? So the the time line place may be more exact. from Marcel

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: A good place to repost this request is at the community group for the Places database. You will find this here:
https://community.familysearch.org/s/...

The sign on is just your FamilySearch sign on. This is also the place where you can request corrections to the place's information.

The position of the time line map pin is based on the latitude and longitude in the Places database which is here:
https://www.familysearch.org/research...

Enter a place name there and you can see all the information about the place currently included such as the latitude and longitude, alternate names for the place, historical periods, citations as to where the information came from, sometimes links to more information about the place such as to wikipedia articles. That is actually the place where the map pin needs to be corrected.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Jeff, great explanation of how the map pins work and why sometimes the map pins can only be on the next geographical level up for the place name we want to have displayed.

I had assumed Marcel had a different concern that I frequently run across. I can't tell you anything about anywhere other than Norway, but for that country whatever database was used for the initial creation of the places database was just not very accurate. I have no idea if it used an older GPS or mapping system, but a lot of places are not mapped as accurately as they could be.

Examples are easy to find. One place that is off significantly is Neshamn, Tysnes, Hordaland, Norway. On the left is the Places database map. On the right is the online map from the Norwegian Mapping Authority (click on image to enlarge):



The latitude and longitude information in FamilySearch is:



It's official latitude and longitude according to the Norwegian government as shown on their map is:



Now, I will admit the the difference is only about 2000 m or 1 1/4 miles. But the difference in setting the Timeline map to satellite view and zooming in to get a look at where your relatives lived is this:



vs



These co-ordinates can be corrected by the place standards team, but is it a one place at a time process. I've been lucky to be able to see the places where my wife's relatives are from gradually improve. Several of the communities with the highest density of her relatives have had all the latitudes and longitudes checked and fixed as needed and now agree very nicely with the Norwegian government's map data.

It's an intriguing idea to think about whether they could come up with a way to let any of us fix just the co-ordinates for a place by just a small amount to correct the accuracy of the database without introducing problems.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said:

These co-ordinates can be corrected by the place standards team, but is it a one place at a time process

Actually it would a one STANDARD place at a time process.

Because a given standard is not only common to all locations that have been recorded at that geographic level, but is ALSO common to all more specific addresses/locations that are within and have been standardized with that one event place name in the standards database, Fixing the coordinates on just a single standard event place name has the potential ability to correct multiple vitals already recorded in the system.

BTW, you just provided another Citation for that place that the places group could use but it is interesting in the difference. Is Neshamn a village or an area? I noticed that there is a Neshamnen in that same area as well.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: It's amazing sometimes how words mess up communication.

You're right, I should have been more clear.

In Family Tree we have the displayed name for a place:



and the Standardized Event Place linked to that displayed place entry:



which comes from the Places database where the place is defined by its latitude and longitude as a specific spot on the globe:



and represented textually by one of its Display Names depending on the language setting of the website:



with the linking of the displayed name in Family Tree to the Display Name in the Places database being accomplished by entering one of the Alternate Names found in the Places database into the place name data entry box in Family Tree:



I should have said that these co-ordinates can be corrected by the place standards team, but is it a one Places database entry at a time process. Correcting the Places database would, of course, correct the Family Tree timeline map everywhere that entry from the Places database is displayed.

***

The Norwegian map is very detailed and includes pretty much the name of everything.

Neshamn is neither a village nor an area. It is a farm located on the island of Nesøya. The farm that you can see in the satellite view above. Another common problem with the initial database loaded into the Places database is that although only a portion of the farms in rural Norway were included in the database, those that were were all labeled as "populated place" rather than farm. This is also slowly being corrected.

Neshamnen is the name of the strait between the island of Nesøya and the larger main island of Tysnes. That is why it is blue and out in the water in the image of the map above

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: So that has always interested me how in that part of the world, standard event places can typically be homestead type places (e.g., farms). In my original example above, that would be like every single house number on every street in the city having it's own separate entry in the Standards database :-)

It's amazing sometimes how words mess up communication

What amazes me is that so many engineers I've met, who must be so explicitly detailed and consistent in their choices of design and software algorithms in order to succeed, can be so nonchalant, loose, and inconsistent in their use of words when describing things!

This is one of the reasons why we have such a heck of a time trying to describe this dual name system to people. Consider the following from your example above:



The terms "Standardized" "Place" is used twice immediately next to each other but in describing two totally different items in two very different contexts. And yet there they are, one immediately over the other inferring that they are related and imposing the same meaning in both contexts. One for the field at the top and one for the field at the bottom. There is not even so much as a white space between them to infer that they are not talking about the same thing.

The only other thing that would differentiate them is the word "Event" in the description of the lower field. But that is backwards too! The "Event Place" (i.e., the place of the birth) is in the top field! The Lower field is just a standard place name taken from he standard places database that has been associated with the event place in order for the "Event Place" to have a geo-coordinate associated with it.

If you remove the contents of the lower field, the way it is titled, that implies that you do not have an "Event Place". And yet the field for the "Birthplace" still exists. But "Birthplace" is nothing more than a "Birth Event Place". So how can that be that you still have an "Event Place" when you have removed the item title "Event place" from the form?

When you "Standardize" something, you apply a "Standard" of some kind to it. The Places database does contain place names that have been "Standardized" by formally documenting alternate names, timeframes, geo-coordinates, etc. as a type of a Place "package" (i.e., apply the database standards to each of them).

But that process takes place out of our sight in the world of the FamilySearch Places group. Once it is done, all of those "Standardized" places in the database now become "Standards" by which other event place names OUTSIDE of that database can be "standardized" by applying one of the "standards" in the standard places database to them.

Two totally different contexts. That's why in the image above, the word "Standardized" in the bottom left should be changed to "Standard" and the word "Event" moved up a line. To many this may appear trivial, but from a communications point of view (i.e., using the correct words to communicate ideas) the way it is is just plain wrong and is just another item contributing to the confusion of people trying to understand the system.