I am trying to get my place names straightened out. Hempstead was in Queens County, New York, until 1899 when Queens County was split and part of Queens County became Nassau County, including a part of Hempstead town. In the Gazetteer, my choice is Hempstead, Nassau County, New York which is fine for after 1899. It is Hempstead, Queens, New York, before 1899. It also tells me Long Island never existed in New York; probably because its an island and not a county, city, town or village, right (?) Anyway, is there a way for a user to make changes to the Gazetteer?
Search and Replace - because of my misunderstanding of Hempstead’s location, I need to change the “after 1899” places to Nassau County but I don’t see a way to qualify the date - before 1899 and after 1899. I have the same problem with Dutchess to Putnam County and several cities that changed their county location after a certain date. If that doesn’t exist, can it be added?
You can’t do this one with Search and Replace. You will have to be a little more manual.
You can do an Advanced Search for things like Marriage > Date > is after > 1899 AND Marriage > Place > contains > Hempstead That may not be the exact criterion you need, but that’s the concept of how to do the search. Having found the items that need to be changed, you will need to change each one manually.
The default Gazetteer is much like ZIP CODE table the postal service uses.
If you have worked in transportation - this what many shipping companies use to “proof” the ship to location.
I did not realize that the Gazetteer was not generated by RM, but a tool it incorporates into their program. I’ll probably turn it off and just check outside RM for accuracy. It’s frustrating when it tells me some place never existed when I know better. Thanks for your insight.
Another consideration is that RM Placenames (can) have a Name, a Standard (name) and an Abbrev(iation), so one might look into where and how those fit into the various outputs generated.
A lot of my research is in two counties. One is the parent of the other. Periodically, I will review the Places Used list to make sure I don’t have the wrong county listed for the time frame. The Edit Person screen can be opened from the Used list and corrected.
I like to use the city, town and county, and state where the event happened at the time it happened. I have an ancestor (direct line) whose birth occurred in the contested area claimed by Virginia which later became Pennsylvania. This was in the 1770-1775 time frame. New York claimed the area immediately adjacent to the contested area. So folks have used all three states as the state of birth. Fredrickstown, Dutchess County, New York became Kent, Dutchess, etc. and then part of it became Carmel Dutchess County and then part of that area in Dutchess County became Putnam County. Findagrave seems to only allow current names. It also begs the argument: is using only the current place name, history or genealogy? It just gets very frustrating. And then there’s BCA vs USA. Geesh!
I don’t know what that means. As I understand it, Gazetteer is always available and is never disabled. Perhaps what you disabled instead was County Check.
I disable County Check and I do use Gazetteer. But I use Gazetteer only for quick checks of place name. If I have any questions about place names, I usually try to find more authoritative sources than Gazetteer.
Also, be aware that in the United States, the legal dates of county formation were often theoretical rather than actual. It could take some time - sometimes years - for a newly created county to become operational. Therefore, things like deeds and wills and marriages could sometimes continue to be registered in the old county rather than the new county, the official creation date of the new county notwithstanding. It is definitely not a trivial issue.
Yes, I misspoke. I disabled the County Check. Yes, it took years to sort out the border disputes between New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Virginia- from 1683 to 1780 and they extended the Mason-Dixon Line to do it. I find it interesting that people will indicate their ancestor moved from z to b place, when it was a matter of the county or other borders being changed, or a place being renamed. I appreciate your insight. Thanks!
Thanks! Is this the Gazetteer for RM10? I don’t think I deleted the RM9 Gazetteer - I just disabled County Check. Does this work on RM9? I’m using RM9 but I do have RM10. And RM7 and Family Origins 8.2 (which surprisingly works on Win 11), and FTM 2005, 2006 and 2019, none of which I use.