Family Historian User Group

Running it now. You answered before I had a chance to delete my question since I saw the option to geocode all.

Don't know why, but I exceeded my daily google quota (2500?) for geocoding with only 1230 plotted and 400 not plotted, and another 1100 or so to go. I tried restarting, but got the same message, so done for today I guess.

So now, to get these into Place records; I do this, bu then the new values will override what FH geocoded?

ƒh V6 Place Records and the Plugin Place only Locations Database can be synchronized as follows. (it was already set as default).

In the Location Plot Options tab, set Locations From: to Place Fields only and Database In: to Place Records. When this setting is applied the Place Records and Place only Locations Database are merged. If a Plugin Place Location had been geocoded then its details take precedence, otherwise the Place Record details apply for that Place.

Sorry, my first time through this, so a few questions. Are these geocoded locations now in the Tools:Work with Data: Place List? Is it overriding the FH geocoding? I noticed, e.g., Dublin, GA still remains as Dublin Ireland. So not sure if it's really updating the Place list.

After my last attempt, with quota exceeded, I closed a small window with the 'x', and now plugin is frozen. Will I lose all the locations that were plotted since I couldn't do an FH save? I finally ended it with task manager, and restarted.

Checking the examples I noted earlier of erroneous geocoding by FH, they still remain the same in the Place Listing. When doe that list get updated? with the Plotted Locations?

Not certain about the daily quota ~ maybe Google have lowered the limit.
However, it is not so far off, because I think the No Plot ones are tried 2 or 3 times to make sure.
Also the Plotted ones may have needed more than 1 go.
So that gives 1230 + (400 x 3) = 2430 plus 70 retries = 2500

You say "(it was already set as default)" but that is not possible if this is first time the Plugin was run on this Project.
Locations From: does default to Place Fields only i.e. Plugin is reading from them.
But Database In: defaults to the Plugin Data Folder where most Plugin Data is kept as you know.
That needs to be changed to Place Records to get synchronisation with Place Records!

Yes, the Plugin geocode Locations will take precedence over FH geocode Place Records at initial synch.
This is based on the assumption that Google does a better job than FH.

If you don't want that to happen then Erase Place Database on the Database Management tab before synchronisation.
Then you can avoid geocoding the Defined plots from FH when using the Plugin Geocode Plot Some Locations.

I hope you have spent a while browsing all the Help & Advice pages for each tab.

Gosh... too many Place this and that, field and records, etc. : Once I set the Preferences to Place Records; the examples I cited were geocoded correctly! I have a hard time keeping the terminology straight. Yes I did skim the documentation, but it is a tad overwhelming at first glance. But better than too little. I also switched the region bias to US,Virgin Islands, if it makes any difference.

So...will give it a go, as the British say, after my quota is cleared.

But my spirits are again lifted. But why does it take a plugin developer like yourself for FH to get it right?

Thanks.

Ron

@Ron

You can probably get yourself another 2500 on the same day by rebooting your router. That will get you a new ip address (unless you pay your isp for a fixed one), that is unless Google dump a cookie on your computer. It is probably worth a try.

The reason why Calico Pie choose not to use Google Maps in FH is a commercial one.
The commercial usage licence cost would be prohibitive.
Would users be prepared to pay the extra for the FH Licence even if they were not interested in geocode mapping?
Alternatively, there would have to be a complex two tier licensing with/without Google Maps geocode.

The Plugin can use Google Maps for free because it is for personal use.
You could do much the same manually for each Place one by one with many online geocoders.
The Plugin simply automates the process.

There are many options in the Plugin (just like FH and AS) because users keep asking for more features.

Changing the Region Bias has a very limited effect especially if Place names are well defined with County & Country.
Your choice of vi United States Virgin Islands seems a bit unusual ~ do you have a lot of Places there?
I would think us United States of America is a more useful one.

I did change regional bias to United States; missed it when scrolling the selections. In comparison to TNG, found some places were geocoded way off by the plugin, so concluded that for my use, TNG's geocode seems to do a bit better job, have decided to retain TNG's mapping for the website.

On TNG, I will use the procedure noted earlier which works, which involves clearing the entire tree, then restoring earlier backed up TNG places, and then importing the FH gedcom. New places are thus added, and old long/lati coordinates are retained. Lastly, I have run a TNG geocode of those places missing longtitude/latitude values. Runs in a few minutes.

Will continue to use the Map Life Facts Plugin for FH mapping as well, but not output it to the Gedcom.

I would be interested in the places that geocoded poorly in the Plugin.
There often is a reason, although I realise TNG does not have a problem.

tatewise wrote:I would be interested in the places that geocoded poorly in the Plugin.
There often is a reason, although I realise TNG does not have a problem.

Mike, here's some examples for which the plugin misfired and TNG got it right. Note that all had correct USA State Abbr.

(burial ) St. Mary's Catholic Cem, Sleepy Eye, MN>>>>>in Wisconsin (WI)
(marriage) Guardian Angels, Oakdale, MN>>>>off west coast of Africa.
(born) Sigel Twp, Brown Co, MN>>>>>somewhere in Illinois (IL)
(born) NY>>>somewhere in Illinois (IL)

Ron, I have to admit to being totally bemused by your observations.

I have tried all those four Place names one at a time in my Map Life Facts Plugin and they all geocode perfectly.
The first two right on the church, and the other two in the middle of the township and state respectively.

I am fascinated to discover what is making your geocodes so different.

[ BTW: Even the FH Place Window geocoder got the 2nd & 4th correct. ]

I'll take that as good news. I just have to get everything geocoded properly. It appears not all locations originally geocoded by FH were replaced by your plugin's geocoding, because I did the one's in question singly, and the results were correct.

How do I confirm that geocoding was done for all places? Is there a way to clear all and start over? Some things didn't go smoothly when I first ran the plugin. I switched away to a browser during the process, and when I returned to the window, it appeared to hung up. After restarting the plugin, it continued, I thought. However, some the the 'defined' locations may not have been done.

After doing a full backup, I used the plugin's erase place database, but looking at the work with data place listing, the geocoding is still there? I am very confused on where and what I do to clear/refresh all geocoding.

Did you remember to turn off the Family Historian built in Geocoding in Tools>Preferences Mapping Tab?

Sorry Ron, I agree that the Erase Place Database needs clearer advice or a redesign.
In the special case of the Plugin database synchronised with the FH Place records, its effective is minimal, because as soon as the Plugin database is erased, it is resynchronised with the FH Place records, and all the data repopulated. Maybe that option in the Plugin for the synchronised with Place records case needs reviewing or disabling.

Anyway, to geocode every Place, from the Geocode Location Plots tab, use Geocode Plot All Locations and say Yes to the prompt about including Defined Plots, which if you remember are the non-Tentative FH Place records that usually should not need updating, but in this case to get every Place geocoded they do.
Alternatively, use Geocode Plot Some Locations and select each Class in turn including Defined Plots.
The Lat/Long determined by the Plugin will replace whatever was in the Place record, except if the Plugin finds No Plot in which case the Place record Lat/Long is retained.
See plugins:help:map_life_facts:1_geocode_location_plots|> Map Life Facts ~ Geocode Location Plots.

Thanks Mike. Will proceed with the remapping. Not necessary, but with the issues I had, I was sort of looking for a way to clear ALL long/lati entries before redoing so I had assurances all were redone. But apparently way in FH to do that, short of using a editor macro to clear all MAP and LONG/LATI records/lines in FH's gedcom.

Jane wrote:Did you remember to turn off the Family Historian built in Geocoding in Tools>Preferences Mapping Tab?

Good point Jane, I missed that. I have now turned it off and will follow Mike's procedure for re-geocoding all mapping with Map Life Facts plugin.

Ron, you could create a custom Place Query with a Lat/Long column.
Then in the Result Set select that entire column and hit Delete key.

tatewise wrote:Ron, you could create a custom Place Query with a Lat/Long column.
Then in the Result Set select that entire column and hit Delete key.

Thank you, worked nicely. I thought maybe a query and delete might work; just needed confirmation. Now can redo geocoding.

One thing noticed: after the clear of not null long/lati fields , upon loading the plugin, indication of 579 of 2860 not plotted before even beginning. I thought I would see all 2860 as no geocode found. As an aside, TNG had 423 not plotted with it's geocoding.

The geocoding stopped part way through with this error code:
COM exception:(.\src\library\tLuaCOM.cpp,394):The operation timed out

stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'Send'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'StrGeocodeLocation'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:5165: in function 'doGeocodePlot'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:5209: in function <[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:5200>
(tail call): ?
[C]: in function 'MainLoop'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."] in function 'ShowDialogue'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:6474: in function 'GUI_MainDialogue'
[string "C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\..."]:7729: in main chunk

What is best action to take? restart? Hitting 'go' , the error popup is gone, but hitting 'stop plotting locations' does nothing.
OK. so I was allowed to 'x' the plugin windows, and the plugin, then did a 'SAVE' and restarted the plugin, and restarted plotting (with plotting defined locations set to no.

As it says in the Help & Advice the No Plot case is associated with the FH Place record Status of Blocked. So if you wanted them all as No Data then the Status would need to be cleared as well as Lat/Long. But in practice for what you wanted it makes little difference.

The COM exception is some Internet communication disruption that is outside the direct control of the Plugin.
The Send function is trying to send the geocode request to Google.
Error recovery from such unexpected scenarios is difficult, so probably best to close the Plugin and start again, but as you correctly decided without Defined Plots.

Thanks...will not worry about those with such a status of 'blocked'.

For some reason, my last post vanished (twice). Third time's a charm they say....not surprisingly I reached the quota exceeded after reaching 'N' in the apparent alphabetic progression (per the place listing) of the geocoding with Map Life Facts. So, tomorrow's another day to finish, perhaps, and then I can reevaluate which software (TNG or FH Plugin) to do the plotting.

The plotting with Map Life Facts Plugin completed today. While satisfied with much better results, and will use this geocoding in FH, I will continue to use TNG's geocode plotting for the website at this time. The reason is that TNG was even able to plot those in which a valid city and/or state was merely embedded somewhere in the place text, thereby plotting, mostly correctly, an additional 160 or so places. Admittedly, these places have messy places which need to be cleaned up, mostly inherited from trees merged years ago.

A few examples, plotted correctly:
Abbottstown, Adams Co , PA-Could Not Speak English When They Married;
Ewing Cem, Frederick Co, VA
Age 45 1 20-Amwell Twp, Hunterton Co, NJ
Living In Plains Twp, Starke Co, OH In 1855
St. Joseph's Cem, Cottonwood Twp, Brown Co, MN
Russia, Beltrami Co, MN

Once I have these places tidied, there will be little difference in the results, I suspect. However, not sure why the plugin found some of cemetery and church places but not others.

Overall, though, pleased with the results especially when compared to using FH's default geocoder.

Question, how can google's geocoder even map places like this?
Dress Maker
Stark
Divorced 1980
Doctor ????
Carpenter- Home Building
??? 1841 Died ?
...