Weirdest thing…after I updated the historical heirarchy for Hawkins County, Tennessee I noticed it was displaying as Tanassee. I checked from the places view and Tennessee displays with title Tanassee.
You need to check the Alternative Names in Tennessee’s record. If it has Tanassee as an option with dates and if the main Tennessee entry has date options this will make the changes.
Thanks! That’s it. the name is derived from the Cherokee town named “Tanasi” and Tanassee is one of the alternative names. But, there is no date listed for that alternative name, only the date of creation I put there for Tennessee, 1 June 1796. That is found in the calendar box next to the main window where I first typed Tennessee. There are no dates shown at all in the alternative name section where it has a date column. I checked someone born in the 1800s and it also is now showing Tanassee. Do I need to delete the alternative names?
Perhaps I should mention, the Geo ID shows that I created it with the add on. (Place Cleanup?)
I added After to the date of creation and it displays correctly now. I have a hard time remembering how and where to incorporate dates in places. It’s especially hard when there are two calendars in enclosed by tab, general at the top and another one next to the enclosed by place you’re choosing…
If you have a place name with a specific date, the name will be valid only on event dates with the same date. So the Tennessee date should be “after 1 June 1796”.
I would put something like “from 1600 to 1772” for the dates for “Tanasi”, “after 1772” for the main “Tennessee” record. I would also add “Tennessee” as the last Alternative Names with no date information. This would account for any events with no dates. which return the earliest date option (think 1 Jan 1). If you leave only an “after …” date for the main Tennessee record, and “Tanasi” with no date structure, any event with no date will return “Tanasi” which is probably not what you want.
Thank you Dave, I’ll do that. Boy, Places are just too complicated but I want the names to match the records.
A couple times I have had to remind myself I am doing Genealogy and not making a Gazetteer.
Do you consider the behavior to be a bug?
When using the Place Cleanup, I’ve had instances where the ‘Primary Name’ (which has no capacity to display the date range nor language code) seems to be superseded by an Alternative Name which has no date. And, in some cases, that Alternative Name even has a different language code than what the OS is running.
I do not know how the Place Cleanup affected the entries. I do not use it.
I will let you know that in 5.2, the main Place entry and all alternative names will display in the Names (renamed) Tab displaying all Date and Language settings.
I don’t know for sure but it seems like a bug to me. I’ve never had this happen before but I only ran some of my places through the clean up tool so only those have those alternate names like Tanassee. I think the tool should have dates included if it is going to use a name that was a temporary name. Or, perhaps have the option to assign the version wanted.
That information wold need to part of the GeoNames database.
You may be interested in Atlas of Historical County Boundaries
No automatic entry tool, all manual entry, but it has good dates of the changes in county/state boundaries and names.
Thank You. I’ll check it out.
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