Timeline map error.

Elizabeth Jacobsz

On the timeline for Jan Jacobsz, ID no: LCVV-6MW, the map erroneously places several of his timeline events in Egypt instead of in the correct location in South Africa. We have confirmed that the entries are in fact correct. It is only the placements on the map that are wrong. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Any advice on how to fix this will be much appreciated.

DebDT

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/what-is-the-timeline-or-map-in-family-tree

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Paul W

@Elizabeth Jacobsz

Just curious - I wonder if you took any action here (e.g. change incorrectly standardised place names) or has the matter seemed to have "resolved itself" without any action from you?

I comment after checking the timeline / map: looks fine now.

BTW - another reminder for me (and others) to check out the timelines more often, to make sure the standardization is as it should be, as the display name on the Person page does nothing to indicate the accuracy of what the (hidden) standard might be. (e.g. the intended "Colchester, Essex, England, United Kingdom" for my relative looks correct as the "Colchester, Essex" displayed on the Person page, then I find it has standardized as "Colchester, Essex, Ontario, Canada!)

Gordon Collett

Good catch, @Elizabeth Jacobsz !

Something strange is going on. I'll post what I am seeing even though I don't understand it so that other's can be puzzling this out.

Going to Jan's timeline, there are seven events that are mapping to Egypt. Six births of children and his burial. Looking at the place names, they all appear correctly standardized. The really strange part is that the same standard appears to map to two different places. In the two screen shots below, you can see the standard value in the tool tip pop up. The text looks identical, the mapping is very different.

I can only think there is a problem in the Places database and that there are two entries for Senekal and some of it's children. I'm going to take a look.

Gordon Collett

Yes, that is where the problem is. Senekal the town in Orange Free State has two entries in the Places database:

The one that is mapping to Egypt is missing the negative sign in front of the Latitude. The correct one is marked as "Provisional." That means it is not available in Family Tree and won't be until is is changed to "Accepted." Actually these two places need to be merged. There is also Senekal the district and the birth places that are mapping correctly are standardized to Senekal the district rather than the town.

One of the births that is mapping incorrectly and the burial are in Gewelkrans which is not in the database but it is still standardized correctly, but to the version of Senekal that has the wrong latitude.

Now, I know nothing about this part of the world. In the database I see, as stated above, Senekal the district and Senekal the town. The district has 80 places, all farms, under it. Is Senekal town independent of the district? Or in addition to having it's latitude fixed, should it be placed under the district? Should it be in the database as Senekal, Senekal, Orange Free State, meaning Senekal Town, Senekal District, Orange Free State?

When the database people fix the latitude and merge the two places, do they need to fix the jurisdiction as well? Or is it fine the way it is?

Gordon Collett

I see things have gotten fixed overnight:

There is now just one Senekal town in Orange Free State, its marked as Accepted, and has the correct Latitude and Longitude.

Checking on Jan in Family Tree, the timeline map isn't correct yet, but I suspect it could take a few hours or a day for the Places database to sync with where ever Family Trees pulls locations from.

Paul W

That's strange. When I looked at the map yesterday afternoon it just included the places in South Africa - certainly no Egypt locations there. On seeing Gordon's screenshots I was led to think I must have different filters applied - hence the omission of Egypt on the view I was getting. However, now I do see "Gewelkrans, Senekal, Orange Free State, South Africa", with a pin firmly placed in north west Egypt! I made no changes to my filters, so can't understand how Gordon was seeing one thing yesterday and me another.

Gordon Collett

There:

Family Tree has updated with the new Places database correction and the problem you reported is fixed.