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Maps are nice, but historically relevant geography is crucial to genealogy

Replies: 13

Maps are nice, but historically relevant geography is crucial to genealogy

Posted: 5 Apr 2015 8:52AM GMT
Classification: Query
FTM has a very nice mapping facility that uses Microsoft's Bing maps. Once the program thinks it knows the location your "Place" is referring to, it displays a map of that location as it would appear today. Unfortunately, the implementation of this mapping function destroys genealogically relevant data, if you follow the program's instructions to "Resolve a place name". The mapping facility does not recognize historically relevant geographical names, which are not internationally recognized current places. For example, FTM does not recognize the "Holy Land" as a place name in spite of the genealogically relevant fact that 3/4 of the earth's population belongs to one of the three religions that understand perfectly well where that location is. FTM also does not recognize "Massachusetts Bay Colony" either, nor hundreds of thousands of locations that are commonly used to refer to a place defined in both geography and history. If you follow the program's instructions, it leads you to alter the genealogically relevant place name with a false place name that is the current name of the same location. This has the effect of destroying genealogy information. Another consequence is to replace the County for a City in the US with the current County, even for Cities that have seen the County they are assigned changed over time (as happened commonly in MA, PA, and VA for example). That reduction in information content can send people looking toward the wrong Courthouse for records. From a display perspective, the program insists on including the country needlessly lengthening the printed name on charts. There should be an option to turn that off. There is an option allowing the user to add a user-defined place name. Right. I can cure the design flaw by making 9,918 edits! Instead, I just edit the country name out when editing or copying data into my database. The program complains, but seems able to find California as readily as California, United States.
SubjectAuthorDate Posted
wbalson 5 Apr 2015 2:52PM GMT 
zcwm 6 Apr 2015 12:16AM GMT 
keithnuttle 6 Apr 2015 2:23AM GMT 
kj_norway 6 Apr 2015 3:50AM GMT 
KATHYMARIEANN 6 Apr 2015 8:51AM GMT 
jamclo 7 Apr 2015 3:04AM GMT 
KATHYMARIEANN 6 Apr 2015 9:34AM GMT 
kj_norway 6 Apr 2015 12:48PM GMT 
keithnuttle 6 Apr 2015 2:25PM GMT 
kj_norway 6 Apr 2015 3:36PM GMT 
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