I still have a pet peeve with RM where one cannot edit or merge locations (Places) from withing an individual’s edit mode.
Example - Let’s say I download a person’s record from FamilySearch. And within that download comes the location(s). If the location is one I already have in my database, which I have geo coded, etc., I would like to merge mine with the one downloaded, but from within the editing of the individual record, I have to exit the :People” mode go into the “Places” mode make the merge and then go back into the “People” mode.
One was able to perform all of this while in any person’s record prior to RM8
I would really love to see that functionality restores in an upcoming update.
You’re mostly correct. You do have to go into Places, BUT, you DO NOT have to close the Edit Person window that is already open. Access to both can be at the same time.
Years ago, RM did operate in such a way that a change to a place name from within the Edit Person screen did change the place name in the Place List and therefore did change the place name for everywhere it was used. It was a terrible feature, and I would not like to go back to that method of operation. It was far too easy to make a change that effected your whole database when you actually only intended the change to be for one particular fact.
For example, suppose you have a person’s birth place entered as Bell County, Kentucky which is correct. Then suppose you discover that the person was born in Middlesboro, Kentucky which is a town in Bell County. And suppose you changed the birth place for that one person from Bell County, Kentucky to Middlesboro, Bell County, Kentucky. It was far to easy for the change to be applied to every occurrence of Bell County, Kentucky and not just to that one birth event, even though the other events did not take place in Middlesboro.
Your scenario is a little different where you have two “different” places which are really the same except that one of them is geocoded and the other one is not. But the idea of a local change to a place name for one event globally affecting the place names for lots of other events still makes me nervous.
I typically open the Edit Person screen while in the FamilySearch Person Tools. Correct the place name. Then at the end of my session I delete any unused places that were created when I changed the place name.