Hello Renee,
I am interested in the use of the RootsMagic Places fields in the great RM feature "FamilySearch Person Tools." Specifically the interaction of RM & FS so I can make a decision on how I want to utilize the RM place fields.
I've been reading forum posts on how to use place names, the dilemmas, many ideas & opinions, good & bad, to the point of confusion. I don't want to rehash this topic. All I want to know is what the algorithms RM & FS software are actually expecting? How strict-forgiving or intelligent is the algorithm?
There are four RM place fields.
Which place fields does RM actually send to FSFT when trying to match individuals?
Does any API place conversion or filtering occur before the data is transmitted?
- Place
- Standardized place name (can be auto-populated by RM GeoCode)
- Latitude/Longitude (can be auto-populated by RM GeoCode)
- Abbreviated place name (if any)
What type of "ideal" place name does FSFT expect for optimized matching of RM individuals or will make matching worse?
- Modern names (Kansas) vs. Historical name (Kansas Territory)
- The English spelling of names in other countries vs. the native language vs. RM GeoCode mix
English (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany)
German (Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland)
RM GeoCode (Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany) mixed?
- Some countries have more than one official language (Switzerland officially has 4 languages)
- What about spellings with special characters like umlauts? German (ü) versus the English substitute (ue)
- What about when the place 4-comma format (city, county, state, country) contain qualifying words like "Smith Township" "Smith Twp." or "Jones County" "Jones Co." in the respective city or county position?
- Are the RM GeoCode database & FSFT equivalent place database the same database?
The same place questions if relevant for what is expected by Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, WebHints to optimize their algorithms?
Thank you very much. J