Standardized Place

Wes Jester

I think we need a way to indicate that the indicator for a "non standard place" is incorrect. In my own instance, person id LWF4-3N8, Rich Neck, Talbot, Maryland, United States is indicated as "non standard." Yet, according to https://maryland.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,1,fid,586819,n,rich%20neck.cfm Rich Neck, Talbot, Maryland is indeed a correct standard name.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Given that I can't see any buildings or other signs of human habitation on the satellite views of Rich Neck in Maryland, I suggest you use the nearest inhabited place, which is Claiborne.

(There used to be a way to submit suggestions for FS's places database, but I have no idea what they've done with that currently.)

Note that the "missing standardized place" error does not always mean that it's missing from the database. The exact same message results if the standardized place simply hasn't been selected, which can happen through no fault of the user: sometimes when adding a location using Source Linker, it claims that everything is fine and dandy, but then when you go to the profile, it has the red exclamation point.

You can change the displayed placename while still associating it with the same standardized placename. For example, you can have Wallis's birthplace display as "Rich Neck, Talbot, Maryland, United States", with Claiborne, Talbot, Maryland, United States as the associated standardized place. It involves judicious use of "clicking outside the box". I'll try to come up with step-by-step instructions.

1. Click "Edit" on Wallis's birthplace.
2. Type "Claiborne, " into the box after "Rich Neck," so that it now says "Rich Neck, Claiborne, Talbot, Maryland, United States". Click somewhere just above the box you just typed in, outside the field and its drop-downs but still within the popup window. (You don't want to select any of the options that drop down below the field.)
3. In the box below the one you just typed in, click the little down-arrowhead at the right and choose "Claiborne, Talbot, Maryland, United States".
4. Delete the "Claiborne, " from the first box, and click somewhere outside it again.
5. Click "Save".

Paul W

You can post a request for any place name (that is in the recognised format for a particular period of time), but is currently not on the FamilySearch database. Possibly, it will be sufficient to post here (effectively you have), but I would suggest you do this at https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/68-familysearch-places. I believe you might need to join the Places group first.

If "Rich Neck, Talbot, Maryland, United States" was how that location was known in the 1890s period, there should be no problem in the Places team meeting your request.

Gordon Collett

Wes,

Although I'm not sure from your post exactly what you are referring to, I assume it is regarding the red exclamation point that shows when the displayed place name is not linked to a standardized value for that name. As Julia discussed, you can always correctly standardize a place name either by linking it to the exact name in the database or linking it one or two geographic levels up.

Julia discussed how to link a name not currently in the database to the next closest city. The other, simpler and just as effective way to do this is to just standardize to the county.

For example, this entry is not standardized and will have the red exclamation point:

This entry is correctly standardized and will not have the red exclamation point:

If the birthplace is correctly entered and the "No standard is selected" shows, just click in the box that says "No standard is selected" and pick the most correct item from the drop down menu.

When first entering the name, just type out the entire name, click on the first line of the dropdown menu which will be identical to what you just typed to confirm that is what you want, then make sure the system selected the correct option for the Standardized Event Place field. It usually does a pretty good job but sometimes you will have to click in that field and to choose the correct version.

There are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of places not in the Places database yet and it will probably take decades before they all get entered. Also, there are certainly millions of places that are so small they will never be put into the database because the value of having them there is to small compared to the effort to get them in. So we will always need this ability to enter more than the Places database contains.

Looking at your link and looking at the map, Rich Neck may be in the category of being too small to ever be included since it is a little peninsula with one street running down it. Searching on google brings up Rich Neck manor in Claiborne. If Rich Neck has actually always been part of Claiborne, the other way to standardize it correctly is: