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PLEASE change the standardization of England.

CDO105
CDO105 ✭
February 25, 2021 edited February 25, 2021 in Suggest an Idea

The standardization hint on Tree for England is England, United Kingdom. This is for all dates. This is an error. "The UK, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was founded the 1 May 1707." On my tree for earlier dates than 1707 many, many event places are listed as England, United Kingdom. Relatives who make the change from England to England, United Kingdom are merely applying the standardization hint available on Tree. As I said before this standardization is inaccurate. Please make a change and recognize that the place was simply called England before 1707. This would not be difficult to do but would greatly improve the accuracy of Tree.

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Comments

  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    February 26, 2021

    This point was already addressed when you raised it a short time ago. As pointed out, the options of "England" or "England, United Kingdom" are already available. If they are being shown incorrectly (in relation to the year of the event) you are free to amend to the appropriate standard place format. If your query is being misunderstood, please illustrate exactly where you are encountering the problem.


    BTW - the dates used by FamilySearch are based on the year 1801, not 1707. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom for an explanation of this.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    February 26, 2021

    This point was already addressed when you raised it a short time ago. As pointed out, the options of "England" or "England, United Kingdom" are already available. If they are being shown incorrectly (in relation to the year of the event) you are free to amend to the appropriate standard place format. If your query is being misunderstood, please illustrate exactly where you are encountering the problem.


    BTW - the dates used by FamilySearch are based on the year 1801, not 1707. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom for an explanation of this.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    February 26, 2021

    Thanks so much for your comment. It is really appreciated. I'll accept the year of 1801 as being the year that the United Kingdom was formed. While many places offer the standardization option of just England for event dates before 1801 many do not. Examples: Wrotham, Kent, England; Higham, Norfolk, England. I've been editing my tree to standardize information. I estimate that I've had to change thousands of place names to exclude United Kingdom for events before 1801. It is frustrating. I wish something could be done to encourage accuracy in English place names for all places.

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    February 26, 2021

    Thanks so much for your comment. It is really appreciated. I'll accept the year of 1801 as being the year that the United Kingdom was formed. While many places offer the standardization option of just England for event dates before 1801 many do not. Examples: Wrotham, Kent, England; Higham, Norfolk, England. I've been editing my tree to standardize information. I estimate that I've had to change thousands of place names to exclude United Kingdom for events before 1801. It is frustrating. I wish something could be done to encourage accuracy in English place names for all places.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    February 26, 2021

    Perhaps FamilySearch could flag English places that should just be England by considering the event date. This could easily be done. A message could suggest that the country of United Kingdom was formed in 1801. Maybe this could be a situation for use of the red exclamation point.

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    February 26, 2021

    Perhaps FamilySearch could flag English places that should just be England by considering the event date. This could easily be done. A message could suggest that the country of United Kingdom was formed in 1801. Maybe this could be a situation for use of the red exclamation point.

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  • Adrian Bruce1
    Adrian Bruce1 ✭✭✭
    February 27, 2021

    I'm sorry but I still don't understand your issue. I have just gone into a profile in FA FamilyTree using my browser and tried to create an event with a place-name of "Wrotham, Kent". At the point when I've typed the "Kent", the system is offering me 4 (visible) choices in the drop down list - the first two have "United Kingdom" at the end, the last 2 terminate with "England" - the 3rd is for the Hundred of Wrotham, the 4th is for the village of Wrotham (see image below). You just need to select that 4th and "Wrotham, Kent, England" appears as the standardised choice.


    image

    So if you can't do this, you need to tell us exactly what screen, in what facility, it's not working on.

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  • Adrian Bruce1
    Adrian Bruce1 ✭✭✭
    February 27, 2021

    I'm sorry but I still don't understand your issue. I have just gone into a profile in FA FamilyTree using my browser and tried to create an event with a place-name of "Wrotham, Kent". At the point when I've typed the "Kent", the system is offering me 4 (visible) choices in the drop down list - the first two have "United Kingdom" at the end, the last 2 terminate with "England" - the 3rd is for the Hundred of Wrotham, the 4th is for the village of Wrotham (see image below). You just need to select that 4th and "Wrotham, Kent, England" appears as the standardised choice.


    image

    So if you can't do this, you need to tell us exactly what screen, in what facility, it's not working on.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    February 27, 2021

    I believe I understand your point now. However, take an example of FamilySearch indexed records for a parish in England covering the period 1790 to 1810. I just don't see the indexing instructions would have been given to show records up to 1801 ending in "England" and the rest as "England, United Kingdom". FamilySearch should differentiate between periods of dates in this way, but wishful thinking, I believe.


    Personally, I would probably ignore the format - as long as it does not affect the search routines, or produce a red data warning symbol.


    My big problem has been in standardising places shown as, say, "Helmsley, York, England". Up to 2012 (or perhaps later) "York" was used by the organisation instead of "Yorkshire". I believe every IGI source is formatted in this manner. In this case (with or without the appropriate suffix), the data warning flag does show, so I have had to standardise hundreds of these place names, once they appear in Family Tree. I'm sure a piece of code could have been written to "convert" every county name shown as "York" so it could appear as "Yorkshire", but am sure this would be considered as a low priority task to FamilySearch, as indeed your request would probably be.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    February 27, 2021

    I believe I understand your point now. However, take an example of FamilySearch indexed records for a parish in England covering the period 1790 to 1810. I just don't see the indexing instructions would have been given to show records up to 1801 ending in "England" and the rest as "England, United Kingdom". FamilySearch should differentiate between periods of dates in this way, but wishful thinking, I believe.


    Personally, I would probably ignore the format - as long as it does not affect the search routines, or produce a red data warning symbol.


    My big problem has been in standardising places shown as, say, "Helmsley, York, England". Up to 2012 (or perhaps later) "York" was used by the organisation instead of "Yorkshire". I believe every IGI source is formatted in this manner. In this case (with or without the appropriate suffix), the data warning flag does show, so I have had to standardise hundreds of these place names, once they appear in Family Tree. I'm sure a piece of code could have been written to "convert" every county name shown as "York" so it could appear as "Yorkshire", but am sure this would be considered as a low priority task to FamilySearch, as indeed your request would probably be.

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  • Adrian Bruce1
    Adrian Bruce1 ✭✭✭
    February 27, 2021

    You could be right, Paul - that's an issue certainly.


    We need the Original Poster to explain the issue step by step.

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  • Adrian Bruce1
    Adrian Bruce1 ✭✭✭
    February 27, 2021

    You could be right, Paul - that's an issue certainly.


    We need the Original Poster to explain the issue step by step.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    February 27, 2021

    Thank you all for your comments. What if the available place names were listed chronologically? England before 1801 first then England, United Kingdom after 1801 second? Maybe this would help.

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    February 27, 2021

    Thank you all for your comments. What if the available place names were listed chronologically? England before 1801 first then England, United Kingdom after 1801 second? Maybe this would help.

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  • Adrian Bruce1
    Adrian Bruce1 ✭✭✭
    February 28, 2021

    Sorry - I still do not understand where this issue is. I got the impression that the pre-1801 entries were not appearing for you. That might be a bad understanding of your problem, so it would really help if you told us where in the system you are hitting these problems before we try to discuss possible solutions.

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  • Adrian Bruce1
    Adrian Bruce1 ✭✭✭
    February 28, 2021

    Sorry - I still do not understand where this issue is. I got the impression that the pre-1801 entries were not appearing for you. That might be a bad understanding of your problem, so it would really help if you told us where in the system you are hitting these problems before we try to discuss possible solutions.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    February 28, 2021

    I think I may have identified a problem! FamilySearch offers a few place choices for most English places. This could include both England and England, United Kingdom. However, once the selection is made a note appears below saying "Standardized Event Place". This standardized place always ends with United Kingdom. This information is misleading. Well-meaning relatives then include United Kingdom in the event place.

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    February 28, 2021

    I think I may have identified a problem! FamilySearch offers a few place choices for most English places. This could include both England and England, United Kingdom. However, once the selection is made a note appears below saying "Standardized Event Place". This standardized place always ends with United Kingdom. This information is misleading. Well-meaning relatives then include United Kingdom in the event place.

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  • LJGalloway
    LJGalloway ✭
    February 28, 2021

    I agree totally with CDO105 on standardization of England!!​

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  • nhibbert
    nhibbert ✭
    February 28, 2021

    I agree totally with CDO105 on standardization of England!!​

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    March 1, 2021

    CDO105


    Your exact problem is still confusing some of us!


    As Adrian requested, it would really help if you could provide a specific example, preferably with a screenshot.


    My latest assessment / guess is that you are possibly not clicking on the alternative that ends with "England". If the version of the place name above it in the list ends with "United Kingdom", failing to click on the alternative will mean the "United Kingdom" version will automatically be selected as the standard(ized) place name. So, in Adrain's example, you need to actually click on "Wrotham, Kent, England" to prevent "Wrotham, Kent, England, United Kingdom" populating the display (place name) box.


    The only problem you should ever have is where there were no "England" place name at all (e.g. "Wrotham, Kent, England") in the drop-down list. In these cases you need to request FamilySearch to add the place in this format to the database.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    March 1, 2021

    CDO105


    Your exact problem is still confusing some of us!


    As Adrian requested, it would really help if you could provide a specific example, preferably with a screenshot.


    My latest assessment / guess is that you are possibly not clicking on the alternative that ends with "England". If the version of the place name above it in the list ends with "United Kingdom", failing to click on the alternative will mean the "United Kingdom" version will automatically be selected as the standard(ized) place name. So, in Adrain's example, you need to actually click on "Wrotham, Kent, England" to prevent "Wrotham, Kent, England, United Kingdom" populating the display (place name) box.


    The only problem you should ever have is where there were no "England" place name at all (e.g. "Wrotham, Kent, England") in the drop-down list. In these cases you need to request FamilySearch to add the place in this format to the database.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    March 1, 2021

    Paul, thanks for the suggestion. I wasn't clicking on the option that ended with England. I was just clicking on the first option which repeated what I had entered. I'm clicking on the England options now. Still, there must be others that find the process confusing since I've encountered thousands of errors.

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    March 1, 2021

    Paul, thanks for the suggestion. I wasn't clicking on the option that ended with England. I was just clicking on the first option which repeated what I had entered. I'm clicking on the England options now. Still, there must be others that find the process confusing since I've encountered thousands of errors.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    March 1, 2021

    Thank you

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    March 1, 2021

    Thank you

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  • MalcolmWilton-Jones
    MalcolmWilton-Jones ✭
    March 1, 2021

    Related to this, the biggest problem I see is where boundary changes take place. For example the boundaries between Surrey, Middlesex and London have changed several times through the ages and in my families case depending on the dates a person could actually live in the same town at birth, marriage and death but over the years be recorded in all three for the different events. Another anomoly is Penge, formerly in Surrey, then to Kent and now in London!. No system seems to cater for these variations. These changes did not all happen in 1801 but happened at various dates throughout the period from, say, 1700 up until recently. My own tree is correct at the date of each event but when I see my ancestors on Family Search they are there but many of the addresses are incorrect for what they should have been at the time of the event. This is made worse by the transcribers of source material sometimes changing the details in the sources to match the current date and not the date of the event. The same situation occurs also in other parts of the country.

    1
  • Daniel_Scheurer
    Daniel_Scheurer
    March 1, 2021

    Related to this, the biggest problem I see is where boundary changes take place. For example the boundaries between Surrey, Middlesex and London have changed several times through the ages and in my families case depending on the dates a person could actually live in the same town at birth, marriage and death but over the years be recorded in all three for the different events. Another anomoly is Penge, formerly in Surrey, then to Kent and now in London!. No system seems to cater for these variations. These changes did not all happen in 1801 but happened at various dates throughout the period from, say, 1700 up until recently. My own tree is correct at the date of each event but when I see my ancestors on Family Search they are there but many of the addresses are incorrect for what they should have been at the time of the event. This is made worse by the transcribers of source material sometimes changing the details in the sources to match the current date and not the date of the event. The same situation occurs also in other parts of the country.

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  • CDO105
    CDO105 ✭
    March 4, 2021

    When United Kingdom is added to an English place name the reason in the note for "Reason This Information Is Correct." is Standardized or Standard. However, the dates associated with these places are before 1801. Relatives think they are correctly changing place names, but they are not. As I've mentioned before I've come across thousands of these errors. There could be potentially millions of such errors in Tree as a whole. Couldn't something be done to improve this situation?

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  • marygrant
    marygrant ✭
    March 4, 2021

    When United Kingdom is added to an English place name the reason in the note for "Reason This Information Is Correct." is Standardized or Standard. However, the dates associated with these places are before 1801. Relatives think they are correctly changing place names, but they are not. As I've mentioned before I've come across thousands of these errors. There could be potentially millions of such errors in Tree as a whole. Couldn't something be done to improve this situation?

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