Geocoding for non-obvious place names

RootsMagic
,
1

I understand the fact that when geocoding for a place, sometimes it is somewhat impossible for RM and CountyCheck to understand which place you mean. For instance, if the place name is simply Talladega, Alabama, United States, it is not obvious whether you mean to geocode for the city Talladega or the county Talladega.

In my database, If the place shows only the county in the string, I make sure to add the word “County” as in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. If I have both the city and county in the name, I drop the extra unnecessary word, resulting in Talladega, Talladega, Alabama, United States.

In that second case where both names appear together, the system seems to have no problem geocoding. I’d love to see an enhancement where using a specific set of words (e.g. County, District, Township, etc), the system is able to discern the proper location and geocode.

2

I can submit the request but I’m not sure it would be implemented, due to CountyCheck is trying to work with Standardized place names.

1 Like
3

For USA places (maybe Virginia would be exception) I found it does a good job overall over 95% – some you have to tweak – when it fails I do manually which might include using Wikipedia or AI for the <5% it does not find.

4

Thanks again, Renee…