So if I have a school that existed from 1916 to 1976 before the building was used for something else.
It sounds like I should do School → Address → City rather than just School → City
Coordinates on the School and Address will then be the same. Any point putting coordinates on places that do not have any events on them yet (but have sub places that do)?
In addition to putting the dates on the name of the school as from 1916 to 1976, and enclosed by address from 1916 to 1976, should I add for example an alternate name with no date just in case an event does not have an date on it?
Should the same thing be with enclosed by?
Or should I then just put “Estimated between 1916 and 1976” on the event" to make it show properly?
One last question, when it comes to place types. Is it better to use custom types for stuff that is accurate language wise, or just chose the most equivalent English term if it exist and hope the translation is correct in the future?
(I know in 5.1.5 it were not accurate for Norwegian but I havent checked for 5.2 yet)
A School would count as “building” right? Or custom type “School”? What if its a school with multiple buildings?
I always add the coordinates for the street. It’s done and easier to do it at the same time.
I would add the alternate names with appropriate dates.
I would not add the dates for the enclosed by records. For any time frame you would use the place record it was at that address. I will often add enclosed by date if the property existed prior to 1900 but the ‘address’ did not.
Certain place type have meaning in Gramps. Street, Number. And place types identifying Populated Places; City, Town, Hamlet, etc.
So my thinking that the Place Type is there for my, the user’s, convenience.
This may change if the Place enhancements are ever finalized and implemented One of the ideas was to aggregate smaller Types into a common group, such as Populated Place, to allow greater display formatting by the user.
Related question, if you have coordinates on the addresses(street and number), but not on something that has that address enclosed by, for example a company or school name. Reason may be that the company/school have moved over time and therefore enclosed by different addresses at different name.
Is it possible for that company/school to sort of automatically inherit coordinates from the “parent” place, based on the events date, when it comes to the geography map and therefore show on the map? (If you for example select to show places related to one person)
If you combine address as one thing, both street name and number, neither marking the place as a street, or a number, seem to fit. Still unsure what I should select on for example a company(or school). Maybe I should just make a custom one…
…or leave it at empty and stop overthinking it (Place stuff in general) as its far from the most important part of family tree anyway and instead spend time on people and event stuff etc
The Place record is for a spot on the Earth. If the spot has changed names, Gramps easily handles it.
If an institution moves, it has a new spot on the earth with those new coordinates.
The church building where I was baptized and where my parents married bought a new parcel of land and built a new building. My sister was married in the new building. The marriage record for my parents and my sister point to different Gramps place records. BTW the old place record was sold to a different church. That place record reflects that change with a new name in the Alternative name tab.
Because I know all this history I can make these accurate entries to the Gramps records. I have added notes with links to the other church’s record in Gramps.
Often you will not know of these changes in which case I use the only information I have which is the current location. If I know when the building was built then the enclosed by record will be to the address with an after <date>. A second enclosed by place would be to the city/town for earlier dates or an event with no date. I use this method even when I do not know the build date. Most addresses I give an enclosed by date of after 1899 to the street address record with the city/town as the second entry. I picked 1899 as the date because actual addresses were used in the 1900 U.S. Census.
Exactly. What are you doing? Building a family/genealogical tree or building a gazetteer of place names?
Schools and Universities I will only enclose to the city/town and not an actual address. I add the institution’s Wikipedia link to the record. If a cousin is truly interested, they have the link they can follow.
So you have two places in your places list with the same name because it moved location?
Good question. My mind likes to focus on all details, doesnt matter if its important or not.
I personally find it kind of interesting when locations have coordinates, so that you can view their distributions on a map. (On places you know where are). Would you have two separate places with the same name but different coordinates?
Yes. You can only have one set of coordinates for each place record. A spot on a map. Gramps allows a user to designate which name is displayed for the spot on the map based upon the date of the event.
I add a note to both records pointing to each other.
The major problem is knowing this history. For only a select few places I know this history from personal knowledge. In the vast majority of cases I only know about a place’s current location and nothing about its past history. And that is okay for my purposes.
