GENBOX-L Archives

Archiver > GENBOX > 2004-07 > 1090473715


From: Robin Lamacraft <>
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] Genbox is making assumptions about places?
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:51:55 +0930
References: <5.1.1.6.2.20040722115459.01d57828@mail.internode.on.net>
In-Reply-To: <20040722024421.RXOL14150.smtp2.fuse.net@BILLXP>


Bill,

Thanks for the response. You were right that GenBox had *assumed* that
Roxburgh was at the township level. Why must it do this? I had not done any
prior action to make it do this. I find that this is a most unsatisfactory
method of data entry for places. Incomplete place entry is a common
situation in genealogy. I want to record what the source says, not what a
standardized gazetteer says is the full place name (unless I explicitly
wish to assert that fact).

I don't want what I enter to be changed, so please give me control to stop
the auto-completion and the re-parsing of the place information.

While reading the Help I found another *very* disturbing aspect of Genbox.

"Place levels higher than local site should not contain commas."

This simple statement makes it impossible to sensibly enter most UK postal
addresses into GenBox. Most UK postal addresses have 2 habitation levels,
the village name and the postal town. There are insufficient place levels
within GenBox to allow the correct entry of these places and the barring of
a comma within a higher field then precludes sensible entry of these places.

I take an example from a web page to illustrate

Mochrum Stud, Pengwern Ganol, Cenarth, Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire,
SSA38 9RL, West Wales

In this "Newcastle Emlyn" is the postal town and "Cenarth" is the village
name, so in my reading of Genbox
Detail: Mochrum Stud, Pengwern
Village/Town: Cenarth, Newcastle Emlyn
County: Carmarthenshire
State: West Wales

It looks to me that although some aspects of Genbox's handling od places
are better than other programs, it fails to sensibly accommodate the
complexity in place naming hierarchies that occur outside the USA. I don't
know how to enter West Wales and Wales in GenBox so that queries work sensibly.

Another interesting address that does not seem to handled by Genbox is
Pairc House, Habost, South Lochs, Isle of Lewis, HS2 9QB, Scotland
where "Habost" is a village, "South Lochs" is a region of the "Isle of
Lewis" (in the Outer Hebrides), those isles being part of the county of
Ross and Argyll of Scotland. The most important factor is the ability to
record place name elements is that like elements occupy the same level in
the hierarchy in the same field so that queries will operate in a sensible
global way. E.g. village, town, district, island, county, region, are
*always* in the expected level of place entry.

I think that the constraint on the use of a comma in higher levels of a
place in the long term is unworkable. This constraint needs to be removed
or more levels be interspersed in the place hierarchy.

Alternative place names and a gazetteer are a nice features, but other
"smarts" are getting the way of doing better genealogical recording. That's
my AUD 0.02 worth.

Robin

At 22:44 21/07/2004 -0400, Bill wrote:
>Hi Robin,
>
>Check Roxburgh, Scotland: it is probably entered at the city/town level.
>This means any place name that comes before it would need to be classified
>at the local site level. The second place field on the Event page is the
>local site field (the "at church" it just a suggested local site type, and
>does not appear in the output).
>
>If the default place level assignments are not correct for an event, you can
>press F5 while in a place field to open the "Place Data Entry" dialog, which
>allows you to move the place name pieces to the correct levels.
>
>--Bill
>
>William T. Flight
>http://www.thoughtfulcreations.com
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Robin Lamacraft [mailto:]
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:31 PM
> > To:
> > Subject: [GENBOX] Genbox is making assumptions about places?
> >
> > I go to enter a place for a marriage as
> > Place: Hauvich, Roxburgh, Scotland
> >
> > And after I leave this field, Genbox _insists_ on parsing
> > this place into
> > Place: Roxburgh, Scotland
> > *and*
> > At Church: Hauvich
> >
> > Why does it make the assumption that the first field is a
> > *church* when it
> > is not?
> >
> > How do you stop it from re-parsing what you put in the place field?
> >
> > This kind of automation is not very helpful - there does not
> > seem to be any
> > way to stop it from doing this that I can find.
> >
> > Robin
> >
> >
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