How to work if a place name was changed?

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

During history some locations (=places) have different name. This is very common in house names but also some cities and villages have changed name, even several times.

 

Let say between 1700-1800 a place was called New York and after 1801 it was called Old York. Ofcause all events happened in same physical place but in all outputs it should show that events between 1700-1800 took place in New York and after 1801 in Old York.

 

Easy solution would be to add 2 or more different places and then use which ever is appropriate.

 

However, is there any other possibility if I do not want to add "a dublicate" ?

 

Good ideas please.

 

Peter

[Guest Michael Dietz]

For your example I do end up with three locations:

New York

Old York

New York (now Old York)

 

Virginia and West Virginia is a real example.

 

It gets really exciting when you have counties that are in both states and those counties have also changed over the years such as in Virginia and then in West Virginia. For fun try to track the changes in Tennessee or Idaho, especially prior to statehood.

 

I also use custom styles to enable some identification in the Master Place List as to which of the three (or more) variations I am using. L9 (LatLong) becomes 'Time Span' and L10 (Temple) becomes 'Jurisdiction'. Since I need to put a to time in the time span which does not have to be changed as I get older I use 2200. I also use the Start Year and End Year fields to help me when entering a new tag. And I put some description of the change(s) in the comment box. This adds another level of complexity to entering data but it does work for me AS LONG AS I PAY ATTENTION to what I am doing.

 

So for example using the Virginia and West Virginia example I have

 

Virginia 1776-2200 State-US 1776 2200 Formed from the colony of Virginia becoming the 10th state in 1788.

 

Virginia (now West Virginia) 1776-1863 State-US 1776 2200 That portion of Virginia which formed the state of West Virginia in 1863.

 

West Virginia 1863-2200 State-US 1863 2200 Formed from the state of Virginia, becoming the 35th state in 1863.

 

With counties it gets even more chaotic in some cases. For example my wife has ancestors who went to Augusta County, Virginia, prior to 1775. The successive generations in the same area were in Botetourt, Fincastle, Montgomery, and finally Wythe Counties.

 

And somebody will probably bring up the changes in the European nations over the last 500 years. To sum it up in one word, UGH, ain't politics fun??? In order to keep track of all these changes for the US you need something along the order of The Red Book or AniMap software.

 

Have fun. I will be the first to admit it is confusing and you need to keep focused on the situation as it can easily be compromised by inattention to the details related to the history of the location. But that is what makes for an interesting challenge and also adds a little bit of interest into the otherwise boring list of people.

 

Mike

[Michael Hannah 0]

Hi Peter,

 

Most users recommend that you document the event using the name of the place as it was known at the time of the event. Yes, this will cause multiple entries in the Master Place List for locations that are the same physical location. There are a wide variety of ways to record in TMG that these different place names are all the same. Some users add the name as it is currently know to the place name, often in parentheses, like one of the examples (the other) Michael mentioned. Others use the Comment field in the Master Place list to record the currently known name, although I am currently unaware of any way to get that comment to print in reports. A more complex but often useful method is to create a pseudo "person" that is really the current place name. That "person" can then be linked to the tag, often with a special role name, and optionally a sentence indicating that this is the currently known name for the place. Whether you use one of these or some other method all depends upon how you want to record this information.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Thank you for your ideas.

 

It looks that I was right when I assumed that there is no easy answer if I want to have just one place record.

 

However, would it be great to have just one place record which has several "names" depending time an event took place.

New York (1700-1750)

Old York (1751-1900)

And if event took place on 1730, New York would print out etc.

 

 

Peter

 

 

 

For your example I do end up with three locations:

New York

Old York

New York (now Old York)

 

Virginia and West Virginia is a real example.

 

It gets really exciting when you have counties that are in both states and those counties have also changed over the years such as in Virginia and then in West Virginia. For fun try to track the changes in Tennessee or Idaho, especially prior to statehood.

 

I also use custom styles to enable some identification in the Master Place List as to which of the three (or more) variations I am using. L9 (LatLong) becomes 'Time Span' and L10 (Temple) becomes 'Jurisdiction'. Since I need to put a to time in the time span which does not have to be changed as I get older I use 2200. I also use the Start Year and End Year fields to help me when entering a new tag. And I put some description of the change(s) in the comment box. This adds another level of complexity to entering data but it does work for me AS LONG AS I PAY ATTENTION to what I am doing.

 

So for example using the Virginia and West Virginia example I have

 

Virginia 1776-2200 State-US 1776 2200 Formed from the colony of Virginia becoming the 10th state in 1788.

 

Virginia (now West Virginia) 1776-1863 State-US 1776 2200 That portion of Virginia which formed the state of West Virginia in 1863.

 

West Virginia 1863-2200 State-US 1863 2200 Formed from the state of Virginia, becoming the 35th state in 1863.

 

With counties it gets even more chaotic in some cases. For example my wife has ancestors who went to Augusta County, Virginia, prior to 1775. The successive generations in the same area were in Botetourt, Fincastle, Montgomery, and finally Wythe Counties.

 

And somebody will probably bring up the changes in the European nations over the last 500 years. To sum it up in one word, UGH, ain't politics fun??? In order to keep track of all these changes for the US you need something along the order of The Red Book or AniMap software.

 

Have fun. I will be the first to admit it is confusing and you need to keep focused on the situation as it can easily be compromised by inattention to the details related to the history of the location. But that is what makes for an interesting challenge and also adds a little bit of interest into the otherwise boring list of people.

 

Mike

[Michael Hannah 0]

Thank you for your ideas.

 

It looks that I was right when I assumed that there is no easy answer if I want to have just one place record.

 

However, would it be great to have just one place record which has several "names" depending time an event took place.

New York (1700-1750)

Old York (1751-1900)

And if event took place on 1730, New York would print out etc.

 

Peter

You might think it would be great to have TMG smart enough to be able to pick an appropriate "name" for a place depending upon the date of the event, but I believe previous comments have shown that this would be counter to basic principles of the TMG authors. First, many users believe the place name should show what is documented concerning that event, even if that place name might differ from other documentation sources and might even differ from what would "automatically" be chosen based on the date. Second, the TMG authors seem to have a strong aversion to having the software automatically make assumptions concerning your data. I don't think they would want the software to "assume" that the place name was one of many names based on a date. They seem to want to be sure that you can choose to have the place name what you want, and it be your decision. Personally I am glad they have this aversion to the software making assumptions, and I hope they stick to those principles.

 

You seem to want to avoid multiple place names in TMG's Master Place List for the same physical location. I personally don't see this as a problem, why do you?

 

As for a date limited place name, do you realize that you can specify a date range for a place entry in the MPL? Then you can set your Preferences to warn you whenever you select that place name for an event whose date is outside that range. Thus TMG can help you be sure to select a place name appropriate to a date, but will not do so automatically.

 

Just my observations.

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Mike,

 

I fully respect the work, values and assumptions of TMG makers. However I am sure there is allways room for new ideas and ways of seeing things. TMG makers will then decide what they will do and what not.

 

I see this the same way as different names of individuals. There is no dublicate people, just name variations. There is many who can handle this in TMG. In different events you can control name of an individual. Absolutelly clever!

 

It is not just one place which have dublication.

We used to call houses of a village with numbers like New York 1, New York 2 etc. up to 50 in some cases. This was a practise which identified very detailed location, like a street address with a number today.

Then one day this village changed name to Old York and same time all houses had new names like Old York 1, Old York 2 etc. And during history several villages has changed names.

This will increase and has increased number of place records a lot. This is one drawback.

 

Peter

 

 

Thank you for your ideas.

 

It looks that I was right when I assumed that there is no easy answer if I want to have just one place record.

 

However, would it be great to have just one place record which has several "names" depending time an event took place.

New York (1700-1750)

Old York (1751-1900)

And if event took place on 1730, New York would print out etc.

 

Peter

You might think it would be great to have TMG smart enough to be able to pick an appropriate "name" for a place depending upon the date of the event, but I believe previous comments have shown that this would be counter to basic principles of the TMG authors. First, many users believe the place name should show what is documented concerning that event, even if that place name might differ from other documentation sources and might even differ from what would "automatically" be chosen based on the date. Second, the TMG authors seem to have a strong aversion to having the software automatically make assumptions concerning your data. I don't think they would want the software to "assume" that the place name was one of many names based on a date. They seem to want to be sure that you can choose to have the place name what you want, and it be your decision. Personally I am glad they have this aversion to the software making assumptions, and I hope they stick to those principles.

 

You seem to want to avoid multiple place names in TMG's Master Place List for the same physical location. I personally don't see this as a problem, why do you?

 

As for a date limited place name, do you realize that you can specify a date range for a place entry in the MPL? Then you can set your Preferences to warn you whenever you select that place name for an event whose date is outside that range. Thus TMG can help you be sure to select a place name appropriate to a date, but will not do so automatically.

 

Just my observations.

[Michael Hannah 0]

...I see this the same way as different names of individuals. There is no dublicate people, just name variations. There is many who can handle this in TMG. In different events you can control name of an individual. Absolutelly clever!

Yep, and it is the same with place names. You can have as many as you want for a give place and just like people names you can control which one you use with an event. The key is that you control which one. Just like people name variations increases the number of name records in a List of Names, so does place names increase the number of records in the Master Place List or List of Places.

 

Again, I wonder why you find this increased number of place records a problem? Are you having issues with finding an appropriate place name or trying to group them together in a sort for places? There are a number of tricks people have used to help this. Or is it something else?

 

If we could understand the issue better maybe one of us users could suggest some ideas that may help?

[Guest Michael Dietz]

Peter:

 

I think I see your problem. You wish to have the house address as part of the location. If you have 50 houses then you would have to have 50 locations, New 1, New 2, New 3... Then if the village changes name you have to have 50 more locations. If you had 200 houses the numbers increase dramatically.

 

I think what you are looking for is a location template sentence structure which would have something like:

 

<[Addressee], ><[Detail], ><[City] [M],> ...

 

Where you could put the actual number in the memo field for the tag and New York in the City field of the location. This way you could construct the address for any house in the village and when the village name changes you would have just a second location. Unfortunately TMG does not allow the [M] or any other variable in a style template other than those given in the style.

 

But what about this:

 

Have a place style which only has Addressee, Detail, and Village in the template. That is the template sentence ends with the name of the village.

 

Make a role for each event, birth, death, marriage, etc. which needs the house number and then set the associated sentence for that role to handle the address. For instance:

 

For Birth have a role named House-Number and the sentence could be:

 

[P] was born <[D]> <[L]>< [M]>

 

If you need additional data in the location such as parish or province or ... (I am not familiar with jursidictions in Finland) then rearrange the location style to something like:

<[Addressee], ><[Detail], >< [Province], ><in the house numbered [Village]>

 

Then the role sentence would work. However this would be a kludge on the address part of the sentence and may not be acceptable.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Mike (also)

[Peter Tarkkonen 0]

Mike&Mike,

 

thank you for your kind help! I have realized that an easy answer does not exist.

 

After considering different options I have decided to stick in my earlier way of doing (as long as possible) ie. one physical location has only one record in database.

 

Peter

 

PS. To me Detail is house with a number (or street address including house number), City is Village, County is City and State is province etc.

 

 

 

 

Peter:

 

I think I see your problem. You wish to have the house address as part of the location. If you have 50 houses then you would have to have 50 locations, New 1, New 2, New 3... Then if the village changes name you have to have 50 more locations. If you had 200 houses the numbers increase dramatically.

 

I think what you are looking for is a location template sentence structure which would have something like:

 

<[Addressee], ><[Detail], ><[City] [M],> ...

 

Where you could put the actual number in the memo field for the tag and New York in the City field of the location. This way you could construct the address for any house in the village and when the village name changes you would have just a second location. Unfortunately TMG does not allow the [M] or any other variable in a style template other than those given in the style.

 

But what about this:

 

Have a place style which only has Addressee, Detail, and Village in the template. That is the template sentence ends with the name of the village.

 

Make a role for each event, birth, death, marriage, etc. which needs the house number and then set the associated sentence for that role to handle the address. For instance:

 

For Birth have a role named House-Number and the sentence could be:

 

[P] was born <[D]> <[L]>< [M]>

 

If you need additional data in the location such as parish or province or ... (I am not familiar with jursidictions in Finland) then rearrange the location style to something like:

<[Addressee], ><[Detail], >< [Province], ><in the house numbered [Village]>

 

Then the role sentence would work. However this would be a kludge on the address part of the sentence and may not be acceptable.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Mike (also)