TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2000-05 > 0957233864


From: Douglas Burbury <>
Subject: [TMG-L:] TMG-L: Re: Inserting data in a location field
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 12:17:44 +1000
In-Reply-To: <200005012349.SAA22513@just.doit.com>


Hugh,

>You can use Tools>Master Place List>Search/Replace to do this. In the dialog
>box, key "Tasmania" in both the "Search for" and "Replace with" textboxes in
>the "State" row. Key "Australia" in the "Replace with" textbox on the
>"Country" row. Click "Count" to check how many replacements will be made, or
>"Replace" to actually do the replacements.

This will insert "Australia" as a country for all instances where
"Tasmania" appears as a state. However, Hugh, this may not be what you
really want to do, depending on how pedantic you are and how scrupulously
accurate you want to be. ;-)

Australia wasn't formally constituted as a country until 1 January 1901,
although it was informally referred to as such well before this date. So if
you wanted to be accurate, events before January 1901 should not have
Australia as the country. I suppose the country in this case should
technically be the United Kingdom, as Tasmania was a colony of the UK
before 1901, albeit with extensive rights of self-government.

To further muddy the issue, "Tasmania" wasn't formally adopted as a name
until 1854, although again the name was in informal use well before this
date. Up until 1854, it was the colony of "Van Diemen's Land" and it had
virtually no self-government except for governors who varyingly ruled by
right of decree (often when they shouldn't have) or by following
instructions from a higher authority. But I digress ...

I went ahead and did the very same blanket replacement some time back (I
live in Tasmania, and many of my lines lead to Tasmania), and later on,
when I found out what I'd done, I wished I hadn't done it.

I'm still editing the State and Country fields to what I perceive to be the
correct fields, as I come across them.

Douglas


--
E-mail: ------------------ Launceston, Tasmania
http://www.vision.net.au/~dburbury/burbury.htm (Burbury family page)
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Listowner: BURBURY Mailing List

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