Does a birth record entry have to be a standardised location or can an accurate address be entered?
I'm having trouble with entering the birth record for "Frank Sewell became Hunt" LJKQ-1L7. I have the precise address from his General Record Office Birth Certificate: 22 King's Road, Barking, Essex, England, and always ensure on entry that I click it as "standardised" but another contributor is insisting that the birth record address has to be just "Barking, Essex, England". He says the precise addres should only be entered as a note. Is he right?
It would of course affect many of my other records where I have bought birth, death and marriage certificates. Please clarify,
Regards,
Brian Tye
Best Answers
-
I really, really, really wish FamilySearch would rework their help center articles and blue dot information tips and explain what a wonderful program they have created for us. The design for place name entry is brilliant but is so unique in the world of genealogy software that many people have trouble understanding what a great tool they have given us.
s10297588641 is corrrect. "Standardized place in my thoughts is always better." In fact, having a standardized place is very important for the Family Tree program to function properly. You do always want to standardize.
However, this is standardized:
If it were not standardized, it would look like this:
The top image clearly says "Standardized." The bottom image clearly says "No standard." As long as you have the green checkmark and the proper standard is chosen for the second place field, the program will work perfectly fine and will work as designed because this is exactly how it is designed to work.
As far as how much of the place name is proper to include, keep in mind that Family Tree's goal is to include everyone ever living on the earth. That means we need to identify everyone just as precisely as possible. Why hide potentially valuable information in a reason statement, a note, or even just left buried in a source when we can put it right out front where everyone can see it?
Which of the following pairs is going to most likely be incorrectly merged?
- John Smith born 23 May 1879 at Barking, Essex England
- John Smith born 23 May 1879 at Barking, Essex England
or
- John Smith born 23 May 1879 at 22 King's Road, Barking, Essex England
- John Smith born 23 May 1879 at 155 Queen's Circle, Barking, Essex England
We need to identify people and we need that identification to be as obvious as possible.
1 -
Thanks, again, Gordon,
I studiously avoid social media but am obviously being forced into it by this change.
It's totally understandable that they want to move away a bit from control given the open nature of the site but they do need to provide better guidance. The pandemic must have stretched their resources (and certainly their database) as bored people have decided to plunge in.
This one's minor compared to someone who trashed one of my wife's ancestor's line last year and i'll let it go: better things to do.
Best wishes, Brian
0
Answers
-
Brian,
You are both correct. Yes, the place needs to be standardized. But, the address can be added to the standardized place.
Here is the Help Center link
How do I enter dates and places into Family Tree?
Thank you.
0 -
Many people do not understand how standardization works in Family Tree. You are correct. He is incorrect. As long as there is no red exclamation point the location is standardized. Family Tree is designed to allow extra information in both the date and place fields to allow us to enter full, accurate information.
This is the correct way to enter your example:
with or without the United Kingdom depending on the time period. This is correctly standardized.
Unfortunately the Help Center article explains this system very poorly and I think a lot of people end up more confused after reading it. Also, people put far too much importance on the map location icon. It has nothing to do with whether a place is standardized. It only indicates what location is going to be shown on the timeline map. In this case, it means that the map will show a pin at the center of Barking and will not have the pin precisely on 22 King's Road.
0 -
Thanks, Gordon, my reading of the situation exactly. If an exclamation mark comes up the entry isn't standardised, if it doesn't, it is. Simple really.
I do this for the precision you have defined above, and wherever possible include full names, full adresses everywhere, including churches in baptisms, churchyards in burials and full dates where known. Generally the excellent Familysearch program accepts these but sometimes I have to put a comma (!) in to seperate a church from its parish before it will accept the entry.
Debbie, I'm assuming the "mod" signifies you are a moderator? As you have said, we are both right in terms of the entries but my query, which was intended to be to Familysearch but ended up on this discussion board, was more to establish whether another contributor should be overwriting my entry in this way?
Incidentally, this is the only contribution (?) he's made to the record.
Thank you all for your help.
Brian
0 -
The new support model for FamilySearch is a community one. Anywhere you see a feedback button, you are sent to this Community. FamilySearch moderators keep an eye on things, answer at times, move questions to the right area (I'm surprised this one wasn't moved from "Other" to "Family Tree." If there are things that actually need action, questions will be moved to groups that regular users like us can't access for FamilySearch support to work on. There are still bugs being worked out.
Since FamilySearch Family Tree is an open edit, wiki style tree, there is not much Family Search can do to prevent what is happening to your entries. They leave up to families work out such problems among themselves. First thing to do is figure out how this other contributor is related to you and Frank Sewell. If you are far closer, you have more weight in the matter in my opinion. Then continue to try to convince him that what he is doing is unnecessary and wastes everyone's time. (Leave out that it is rude and misguided.) Then just make sure you are watching the people he is changing and go back and put the addresses back in whenever he takes them out. It is very quick to do using the restore function of the Change Log.
1 -
One last thought, then I'll leave you in peace! One trouble with working in a world-wide tree is compromising with others but still presenting the best data possible. One of these days someone is going to come along and see the name you have constructed for Frank and change it to just Frank Sewell since "became" was never part of his name and general practice is to put someone's birth name in the Vital's section. I would hope that person does put Frank Hunt as an Alternate Name in the Other Information section and puts in information about his name change in the reason statement. I'll be on the side of that other person then.
0 -
Good point. This came in as I was replying to your preceding post. I'll give it a try. I'll actually put his adopted name in as an alternative, it is documented. But don't want to ignite apoplexy.
0 -
Debbie
FYI
A point of clarification ...
An "Accurate" [ie. a "FULL" (Street) Address], DOES NOT; and, should NOT, necessarily, on every occasion, be REQUESTED, to be "Added" to, the 'Place' Names Database, for Research in 'FamilySearch'.
Otherwise, EVERYONE, would be REQUESTING the "FULL" (Street) Address, for, Births; and, Deaths (and, MUCH More).
Certainly ...
'Yes' ...
A 'Place' MUST be "Standardised" ...
[ As, one DOES NOT really want, an "Error Message", of a "Data Error", on a "Non-Standard" 'Place' ... ]
But ...
That said ...
A 'Place' DOES NOT need to have "Map" 'Pin' ...
"Map" 'Pins' are NOT, necessary; or, mandatory ...
Just that the 'Place' be "Standradised.
Just my thoughts.
Brett
0
