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Archiver > GENBOX > 2003-05 > 1054307324


From: "Paul J. Harris" <>
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] Place Names (Street Addresses)
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 11:08:47 -0400
In-Reply-To: <004101c326af$c90de850$4240880a@BILLXP>


Good morning, Bill,

Your extreme thoughtfulness in this post causes me to stop, print it out,
and take it to the couch for consideration. I hope to send you an
intelligent reply, soon.

In the meantime, on this subject, have you ever considered the capability to
add multiple Contact records at the Place Level, or even the ability to LINK
existing Contact information to a place? For example, I have name, address,
and telephone information on three people that I use as a resource for
information on Pleasant Valley, New York. Sure would be nice to have them
all there with the place record.

Just a thought. I know the demands on you for features is great, but your
treatment of places is unique and exciting, and should evolve easily into
the best!

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: William T. Flight [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 9:32 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [GENBOX] Place Names (Street Addresses)
Importance: High


> I think it would probably be better to combine the Street Address field
from
> the General tab on the Local Site with place codes, as the address of the
> Site and Contacts may not be the same. I cover this further, below.
>
> Example
> ====================================================
> Local Site: (the) White House
> Street Address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
>
> Use Address:
>
> [ ] in Lieu of Name
> [ ] With Name
>
> Produces: the White House
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Use Address:
>
> [x] in Lieu of Name
> [ ] With Name
>
> Produces: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Use Address:
>
> [ ] in Lieu of Name
> [x] With Name
>
> Produces: the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
>
> >>But we want to avoid entering BOTH a street address and a
> >>local site name, as that will cause problems with the place level
> >>assignments.
>
> I guess I don't understand the problem, here, as I still don't understand
> what the Street Address field on the General tab of the Local Site
actually
> does. I can think of MANY cases where a Local Site DOES have a name, but I
> want to record the address, as well. That is, the address of the Site, not
> the Contact.
>

Hi Paul,

Your example is intriguing, and it got me thinking. I think I have a
solution for the handling of street addresses.

First, as you point out, there is a "Street Address" field on the Places
General Page, which was intended to be the street address of the local site
itself, not of the contact address. However, at some point in the
development, this was wired to be a link into the contact address, rather
than separate. This will be changed in the next release.

The second observation is that when the place has both a name and a street
address, as in your example, the name is normally shown first, followed by
the street address, and then the higher place levels.

Now: should street address be a real place level, sandwiched between local
site and city?

I think a good criterion for what constitutes a new place "level" is whether
a larger area is encompassed, either politically or geographically. If there
are no additional places that will group under the higher level, then there
is little point in making it a separate level.

A "street address" fails this test: it is nothing more than directions for
how to locate a specific local site. If it was its own place level, then the
local site would be the only thing ever grouped beneath it. Thus, it is
better to treat a street address as a property of a local site, like
latitude and longitude.

But unlike latitude and longitude, which are also properties of a local site
use for locating, a street address can be changed over time: the postal
system can be revised. A previous "rural route" address can become a street
address, for example. In this behavior, street addresses are like name
variants.

Should street addresses be handled like a name variant for a local site?

They are also like name variants in that they are alternate designations for
the same place, which can be used for clarification or substitution. You
could format the place as "the White House (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue),
Washington, D.C." which looks entirely acceptable. You could also make use
of the "Replace with standard name on input" feature, replacing addresses
with the equivalent local site name when one is defined. The "Postal" flag
on place name records, currently enabled only for places at the
state/province level, could be enabled for local sites as well: then, the
"street address" name variants can be clearly marked as being a postal
designation. Like name variants, the "Date Range" can be used to indicate
when an address was valid, so that historical addresses can be maintained
along with active addresses. As a name variant, the addresses would be
searchable with the normal place indexes.

For local sites that have no true name, such as most residencies, the street
address can function as the standard name, and also be marked with the
Postal flag. Or, you can make up a name, such as "Paul J. Harris residence",
then have the address as a name variant. That might be ideal, because then
the local site is readily identifiable when it appears in a list of places,
such as on the List View or place reports. For the "residency" tag, the user
could select the address name variant as the local site, so that "Paul J.
Harris residence" does not appear in the sentence.

On data entry, I'm working on expanding the "confirm new places" option to
show a place detail dialog, with each place level as a separate data entry
field, so that you can easily move parts up/down into the correct level
spots. There can also be a field on that dialog for street address.

For GEDCOM import: for place names that begin with an address and have no
local site name, no special handling is necessary; the address part becomes
the name of the local site. If both a local site name and an address appear,
the program could tentatively identify a place name part beginning with a
number as an address name variant, and store it as a name variant rather
than a place level.

For event templates: I am working on providing codes for each place level
individually. I could also add place template codes for address and place
level/address combinations.

Finally, we could have the "Street Address" field on the Places General Page
actually be a link into the street address name variant record. It would
provide a convenient place to enter and show the current street address for
the place.

---------------------------------------------------

So, how does this new design for street addresses sound? Let me know your
opinions.


-- Bill

William T. Flight
http://www.thoughtfulcreations.com



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