* Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

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Little.auk
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Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Little.auk »

I have been tidying up Places (merging duplicates etc.) in my FH Project, and decided to have a look at the GEDCOM file to see how places were handled. I found the following anomaly.

In FH I have 30 links to the place "Sheffield, Yorkshire, England". In the Gedcom file most of these show Latitude and Longitude as below -

2 PLAC Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
3 MAP
4 LATI N53.3809
4 LONG W1.4708


However, there are a few that do not - as per -

2 PLAC Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
1 HUSB @I61@
1 WIFE @I89@


NOTE - this is NOT a place name I have had to edit.

A couple of questions -

First - is this normal?

Second - will the absence of MAP, LATI and LONG prevent these Gedcom records from showing on FH Maps?

And - I suppose a third - Should I insert the missing data into the Gedcom File?
Peter Rollin
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Jane
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Jane »

Family historian stores long and lat against the place records the ones against facts are probably left over from an import, so are ignored by FH for mapping
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tatewise
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by tatewise »

The first thing to understand is the difference between Place fields and Place records.

Place fields
These involve the standard GEDCOM tag PLAC as in your examples.
The tag is prefixed by a level digit as with all other fields and can be found associated with Facts, etc.
They can be found in the All tab of the Property Box wherever they are used.
The GEDCOM 5.5.1 specification and thus FH allow a subsidiary MAP tag with LATI and LONG field values.
Presumably, the values in your example have been imported from another product.
However, FH ignores those latitude/longitude values and they can be deleted.
The safest way to do so is within FH using a Query to locate them and then delete the unwanted fields.

Place records
These involve the FH custom GEDCOM tag _PLAC and are grouped near the end of the GEDCOM.
They are listed in the Records Window in the Places tab and have the GEDCOM format:
0 @P1@ _PLAC Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
1 MAP
2 LATI N53.3809
2 LONG W1.4708
1 CHAN
2 DATE 11 OCT 2019
3 TIME 22:27:17

These records are linked to Place fields by matching place names rather than Record Id.
It is only those latitude/longitude values that are associated with FH Mapping.

First - is this normal? Yes & No.
The Place field MAP/LATI/LONG structure is valid GEDCOM 5.5.1 but not a normal structure for native FH data.

Second - will the absence of MAP, LATI and LONG prevent these Gedcom records from showing on FH Maps?
As explained above, the Place field MAP/LATI/LONG structure is ignored by FH.

And - I suppose a third - Should I insert the missing data into the Gedcom File? No.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Little.auk
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Little.auk »

Mike,

Thanks for the explanation - my tree was originally exported as a Gedcom file from Family Tree Maker. The MAP , LATI and LONG values must have come from there.

I was going to leave them in the Gedcom file, however, I have just made a copy of it to examine in Microsoft Excel and found that they comprise over 6000 lines (approximately 15%) of the file, so it might be worth while removing them, which I can do safely in Excel using the Filter facility to isolate the lines to be deleted.
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Valkrider
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Valkrider »

If you are going to edit a gedcom file make sure you take a copy first.

Secondly you are better off using a plain text editor such as the free NotePad++ rather than Excel for any editing. Id does have a search and replace / delete function just like Excel but is far safer for editing a Gedcom file.
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Jane
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Jane »

Rather than use an external program, why not simply use a Fact query with columns for the fields you want to remove highlight the columns and press the delete key.
Jane
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Little.auk
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Little.auk »

Just to say, I have now removed the unwanted MAP, LATI and LONG entries.

In response to your replies (for which thanks) -

I do a "Small" backup of my FH project every time FH prompts when I exit, but if I am planning to do something like this I also make another copy and make the changes on that. I then rename the files to test.

I do use Notepad++ a lot, but I have been using Excel for over 30 years and have a tried and tested method for doing this sort of exercise, which takes less than five minutes.

On the other hand i I have been using FH for less than 12 months and am not sure how to go about creating this particular query.

If I am interpreting Mike Tates reply correctly, there is a set of MAP, LATI and LONG entries related to Gedcom PLAC fields - which I want to delete, and another set related to the FH _PLAC records I need to keep.

My understanding is that FH reads the PLAC field and looks for a matching _PLAC record to find LATI and LONG

If FH ignores the PLAC set how can I display these in a query, and differentiate between the "Needed" and "Not Needed"?
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Jane
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by Jane »

Place records and facts are completely different things.

When you use the Data Reference Tab on the Fact query what you will see are

1. PLAC> Which is a Place record.
2. The Long Lat value for the place record.
3. Map which is the local to fact information.

As can easily be seen from the Data References the place > point to a record when as the Map is local to the fact.
2022-06-12_112641.jpg
2022-06-12_112641.jpg (100.54 KiB) Viewed 1107 times
If you have not read the Advanced topics for Data references, I would recommend it.
Jane
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tatewise
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Re: Places in a FH Project Gedcom file

Post by tatewise »

I said FH ignores the LATI/LONG values (regarding Mapping) but FH still allows the field tags to be managed.

See the FHUG Knowledge Base An Overview of Queries for background advice.

Start with the standard Query > Facts and Events > All Facts and use the cog Query Menu > Save As Custom Query....

In the new custom Query, on the Columns tab, use the Fields pane to add Fact + Place> + (Map) = %FACT.PLAC.MAP% that, as Jane says, refers to the Fact Place Map field and not the Place record.
Use the small black up arrow at the bottom to move that Place Map item up nearer the top.
Run the Query and in the Result Set hold down the Alt key while clicking the Place Map column header.
That will bring all the Lati/Long values to the top where they can be selected and the Delete key or Edit > Delete used to delete them all.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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