* Address: Where are you?

[dbnut]

I think this must have been discussed before, but...

The FH Knowledge Base "Working with Places and Addresses" option "Places Only" has acknowledged limitations for my purposes, and I continue to use both Place and Address.

FH maintains Address "records" using a simple GEDCOM extension. That has potential, and offers at least "List of Addresses" from the Tools menu that helps to maintain some kind of structure using comma delimiters. Its "Where Used..." button is a quick way to find which records are linked.

Also the Find (Search) facility can show a list of records containing a selected address part (e.g. road name) with the individual's name active link, and it is possible to sort on the complete address string.
There is little else we can do with them.

In neither case is it possible to customise the built-in query to add extra useful columns. It boils down to Address not being available as a "Query Type", because Address is only a "virtual" record type. Even if it were provided, addresses have no other structure - just a single text string.

By contrast, Places have a rich GEDCOM structure, including Lat/Long, Notes and Media, so we can add photographs of towns and locate them on maps. This is exactly what I'd like for Addresses, especially for the Note ability to add explanations of disappearance or other historical names, and Media to add photos of a specific house or church.

Then, of course, Mike's excellent "Where Used Record Links" plugin could be extended to show us everyone associated with any given address, whether at birth, death, census, residence, etc. The same could be used to find everyone baptised, buried or married at a particular church.

From my perspective, a simple development by Calico to duplicate GEDCOM Place structure into the user-defined Address would add a whole new dimension to FH capability, save me a huge amount of time, and provide a "place" to store all the family house/church photographs - without duplication.

A possible (but only partial?) workaround would be to use GEDCOM's "ADDRESS_STRUCTURE". But this is only a "second class" tag, not supported via Calico's Property Box "Facts" tab (only in "All"). And it would presumably(?) not be "legal" to add the additional GEDCOM Note and Media tags I need.

As a final thought, the Property Box could have great added value by incorporating "hot" (active) icons against Place (and Address, of course) to indicate the existence of Notes and Media.

[BillH]

This has been on the Wish List for a long time. If you haven't already done so, you could vote for it.

https://www.fhug.org.uk/wishlist/wldisp ... lwlref=527

Bill

[dbnut]

Many thanks, Bill

[ColeValleyGirl]

As a final thought, the Property Box could have great added value by incorporating "hot" (active) icons against Place (and Address, of course) to indicate the existence of Notes and Media.

Hard to see where they'd fit alongside this lot Property box icons (21446)! And as I said there, I'd hate it. The fewer icons cluttering things up the better for me. (Doesn't mean it shouldn't happen, just that I'd argue doggedly for it to be an option).

[dbnut]

Hard to see where they'd fit alongside this lot...

laz_gen's idea was only a single "sourced" icon (which sounds OK to me) but I take your point. Certainly agree it could be a property box option.

[Vyger]

I'm fully with you on this Address/Place topic, apart from considering the specific wish linked earlier do search for any other topic of interest and add your vote.

On your last paragraph, I know there are improvements which could be made in the Properties Box. I would also be against additional clutter but there are many forms of visual highlight which could be employed and need discussing.

[dbnut]

visual highlight

Excellent.