Standardizing place names

[Gjest]

I remember when the phone company billed calls to Massachusetts
locations as "MS" and boats registered in Massachusetts had their
registration number start with "MS". Now, "MA" is more universal, as
USPS adopted the postal abbreviation set showing "MS" for Mississippi.

If you abbreviate place names, you run the risk that future
developments might make your abbreviation obsolete.

"CO." can mean Colorado or it could mean Company or County.

"WA" means Washington and Western Australia.

There is enough difficulty with place names as it is, because
localities change parent jurisdiction at the county, province or
country level. When the Virginia Legislature considers naming a new
city, they might not care that there was a city of that name in
Virginia already, if that part of Virginia is now West Virginia or
Kentucky.

What is needed is a public-domain set of codes for all localities.

I make some attempt to do this on my website, where each locality has
her own page.

http://unitedstates.surnamesbytown.com/ ... h0164.html is for
Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.

If usnh0164 is to be the code for Nashua, New Hampshire, USA, then
genealogy software incorporating this feature would offer a list of USA
jurisdictions from which the user would pick New Hampshire. If the user
knows only that the event happened in New Hampshire, but does not know
the locality, then the software would use the code usnh----.

There are many ways to write North Attleborough, Massachusetts, USA.
The user needs to be free to use N. Attleboro, No. Attleborough or any
of the other permutations, which the software would interpret as
usma0222. The user would confirm that he or she means North
Attleborough, by selecting one of the acceptable orthographies.

In GEDCOM files, then, the event would be shown as:

2 PLAC North Attleborough, Massachusetts, USA
3 CODE usma0222

or whatever spelling the user chose. Woe betide the software publisher
who gets involved in the Tyngsboro/Tyngsborough controversy, offending
the user. Worse yet, imagine trying to force the user to identify
Sicilian birthplaces as Italy! Many of these users have strong
patriotic attachment to Sicily, not Italy. Let them decide how to write
the place name, let the software insert the code according to today's
political boundaries, and future boundary changes necessitating new
codes will require a table of cross-references to the old codes.

The user must, of course, be allowed to enter a locality name not shown
on the list, as it would be next to impossible to achieve completeness.

The standardization, or standardisation, by selecting from drop-down
lists, would also reduce the temptation to include sub-localities where
the locality belongs.

The user would select USA or United States of America, then New
Hampshire, then Nashua. A list of sub-localities would be offered and
the user would be allowed to create a new sub-locality to the list. A
separate field would be offered to name the hospital or church where
the genealogy event happened.

Thus, the GEDCOM file might show the place as:

2 PLAC Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, USA
3 SUBL Grace Fellowship Church
3 CODE usnh0164-4317

This would allow for Google searches by locality code or even
sub-locality code among GEDCOM files published on websites.

Each genealogy software publisher would establish a range of code
numbers. When a new sub-locality is created, that software would access
the internet for that publisher's server, which would assign a locality
code, such as one within the 4300 range in this case. Their website
would publish that on a certain date and time, UTC, the sub-locality
code of 4317 within usnh0164 was assigned to Grace Fellowship Church.
As with naming dinosaurs, when it is discovered that the same
sub-locality has already been assigned a code, the junior synonym is
deprecated. It is simple enough to check the competing publishers'
websites to see the date and time UTC when their server assigned the
sub-locality code.

(You may notice that credit card issuers have established ranges of
card numbers, where Amex always starts with 3, Visa with 5, MasterCard
with 5 and Discover with 6 so they never issue a card number that's the
same os one of their competitor's card numbers, and the computers can
always distinguish what type of card.)


Tom Alciere
smart person
Nashua, New Hampshire, USA

[Garry]

Tom
Contact Me Offline at
I May have a solution for you.

[email protected]

Garry

[email protected] wrote:

I remember when the phone company billed calls to Massachusetts
locations as "MS" and boats registered in Massachusetts had their
registration number start with "MS". Now, "MA" is more universal, as
USPS adopted the postal abbreviation set showing "MS" for Mississippi.

If you abbreviate place names, you run the risk that future
developments might make your abbreviation obsolete.

"CO." can mean Colorado or it could mean Company or County.

"WA" means Washington and Western Australia.

There is enough difficulty with place names as it is, because
localities change parent jurisdiction at the county, province or
country level. When the Virginia Legislature considers naming a new
city, they might not care that there was a city of that name in
Virginia already, if that part of Virginia is now West Virginia or
Kentucky.

What is needed is a public-domain set of codes for all localities.

I make some attempt to do this on my website, where each locality has
her own page.

http://unitedstates.surnamesbytown.com/ ... h0164.html is for
Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.

If usnh0164 is to be the code for Nashua, New Hampshire, USA, then
genealogy software incorporating this feature would offer a list of USA
jurisdictions from which the user would pick New Hampshire. If the user
knows only that the event happened in New Hampshire, but does not know
the locality, then the software would use the code usnh----.

There are many ways to write North Attleborough, Massachusetts, USA.
The user needs to be free to use N. Attleboro, No. Attleborough or any
of the other permutations, which the software would interpret as
usma0222. The user would confirm that he or she means North
Attleborough, by selecting one of the acceptable orthographies.

In GEDCOM files, then, the event would be shown as:

2 PLAC North Attleborough, Massachusetts, USA
3 CODE usma0222

or whatever spelling the user chose. Woe betide the software publisher
who gets involved in the Tyngsboro/Tyngsborough controversy, offending
the user. Worse yet, imagine trying to force the user to identify
Sicilian birthplaces as Italy! Many of these users have strong
patriotic attachment to Sicily, not Italy. Let them decide how to write
the place name, let the software insert the code according to today's
political boundaries, and future boundary changes necessitating new
codes will require a table of cross-references to the old codes.

The user must, of course, be allowed to enter a locality name not shown
on the list, as it would be next to impossible to achieve completeness.

The standardization, or standardisation, by selecting from drop-down
lists, would also reduce the temptation to include sub-localities where
the locality belongs.

The user would select USA or United States of America, then New
Hampshire, then Nashua. A list of sub-localities would be offered and
the user would be allowed to create a new sub-locality to the list. A
separate field would be offered to name the hospital or church where
the genealogy event happened.

Thus, the GEDCOM file might show the place as:

2 PLAC Nashua, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, USA
3 SUBL Grace Fellowship Church
3 CODE usnh0164-4317

This would allow for Google searches by locality code or even
sub-locality code among GEDCOM files published on websites.

Each genealogy software publisher would establish a range of code
numbers. When a new sub-locality is created, that software would access
the internet for that publisher's server, which would assign a locality
code, such as one within the 4300 range in this case. Their website
would publish that on a certain date and time, UTC, the sub-locality
code of 4317 within usnh0164 was assigned to Grace Fellowship Church.
As with naming dinosaurs, when it is discovered that the same
sub-locality has already been assigned a code, the junior synonym is
deprecated. It is simple enough to check the competing publishers'
websites to see the date and time UTC when their server assigned the
sub-locality code.

(You may notice that credit card issuers have established ranges of
card numbers, where Amex always starts with 3, Visa with 5, MasterCard
with 5 and Discover with 6 so they never issue a card number that's the
same os one of their competitor's card numbers, and the computers can
always distinguish what type of card.)


Tom Alciere
smart person
Nashua, New Hampshire, USA

[Gjest]

Let me mention in passing that there's a Lincoln, New Brunswick, Canada
which would be abbreviated Lincoln NB. The NB was once the official US
postal abbreviation for Nebraska before they changed it to NE. So
Lincoln NB might be misinterpreted as Lincoln, Nebraska, USA if you
meant Lincoln, New Brunswick E3B 7G9 Canada or vice versa.