Helping to fix Place Names
Working with the Volunteer Opportunity - Helping to fix place names (Jamaica) currently getting (Trelawney, Cornwall, Jamaica). When I select "Standard Place" getting a return of Cornwall, Westmoreland, Jamaica. Westmoreland and Trelawney are two different parishes in the county of Cornwall. Trelawney is not an option for your standard place. Can this be fixed? Changing it to Westmoreland would make the place incorrect.
Thanks
Best Answer
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Dear Donna Harris,
Regarding: Helping to fix place names:
We hope that the following information will assist you with ' Volunteer Opportunity '.
Place not Standardized?
Welcome to the FamilySearch community and thank you for your question regarding Standardized places.
You can request that we add a missing place (such as a town, city, or church) to the FamilySearch database of standardized places but the majority of them are already included and it seems that your question indicates this.
If the place already exists in the FamilySearch database, location options will appear when you click onto the standardized place.
You will find all the information to follow in a knowledge article in which we have provided a link for you below.
You can view more knowledge articles in Help (the small circle around the question mark at top right of screen)> Help Centre.
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Answers
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Thank you for your answer that was a big help. I have requested the place be added.
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While I do not mind helping BUT
a LOT of these corrections can be easily fixed by doing a global search and replace on the database. i.e. replacing "United States of America"/USA with "United States", etc. Or there could be a global replace to change "United States" to "British Colonial America" for all events before 15 November 1777. The database programmer can easily create more complex queries to correct all record at once as in (pseudo-code) "if state= ( from state names in US) and date November 1777 then country = "United States". Also simple things like having a space after a comma is a super easy fix.
I am sure that these could be done with other countries and a little bit of a db administrator's/ programmer's time can probably fix 90% of the location anomalies.
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Hi,
I tried out Fix Place Names this evening and have 2 comments:
1 (and most upsetting) I inadvertently tapped the wrong place on one entry, and in attempting to correct my mistake, managed to somehow confirm it. The person/place to be fixed vanished from my screen, now apparently "fixed" from probably "Nebraska, USA" to "Ne, Cameroon". There should be either an "Are you sure?" or an obvious way to go back and change an input.
2 I had to skip most of the entries because there was absolutely no way to know which was correct. Madison Township? Madison County? No possible way to be certain, given the information available.
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FYI
I am just another 'lowly' User/Patron ...
Just in passing ...
'NO', the LAST thing, that we want, 'FamilySearch' to do.
'FamilySearch', has done; and, tried to do, those "... global search and replace on the database ... ".
And, on MANY occasions, that they have done so, they have made a 'Mess' of it.
NO THANKYOU ...
Even, the "Volunteer Opportunity", to help fix "Place Names", has caused concern for some.
[ Myself included ... ]
Many of the well intentioned, Users/Patrons, who are helping with, the "Volunteer Opportunity", to help fix "Place Names", DO NOT even seem to know, about some the geographic localities, that they are working on.
[ ie. Making, even, a worse mess ... ]
It would be much better, if the work of address/fixing "Place Nanes" (ie. "Standardising), would be just left, for the Users/Patrons, working on their OWN "Ancestral" Lines.
As an aside ...
Although, I am not from there (but, have Family; and, extended Family, there), personally, the likes of, the "United States"/"USA", should appear; as, the "United States of America".
Just my thoughts.
Brett
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