I’m trying to clean up/standardize the places in my database. I want to keep my ancestry tree and my roots magic tree synchronized.
1, I have discovered that if I edit the name of a place via the Clean Places tool, the change is made in the person’s details, BUT, this does not trigger a sync option. When I run attempt to sync my trees there are no people with changed places! Fortunately, I only did one very unique place and made a note of the person that would be affected.
2. I edited a few places, that had associated events. Unfortunately, I did not click on every event and make a note of the names of people affected. So, now I don’t know what I don’t know - that is - were people affected that did not show up on my sync. Or, were the place names changed and the people affected were not updated.
3. On my enhanced properties page, I see I have 27 Place details. How do I find them if I don’t know what place they are associated with? (I have a very large database). This would be a feature request -the ability to see a list of Place Details and then drill down (or up) to the Places where used.
4. Ancestry does not have a Place Details field. They do have a description field. Roots Magic also has a description field. I like the idea of have the details (street addresses, etc) in a separate field and the way Roots Magic presents that info. But, how in the world do I manage this from a sync standpoint?
5. What I have been doing is clicking on the edit buttons for the events associated with a place change that I want to make. For instance, changing “Tennessee” to “Tennessee, USA”. While I am there, I make all needed changes to a person’s places. Then I do an Ancestry sync and send the standardized name to Ancestry. VERY tedious.
6. It would still be tedious, but much improved if I could make a “mass change” to the place name - that is, changing all associated events at once. Then have those changes show up for syncing.
Any help or tips would be appreciated. Thanks.
There is apparently a reason why place changes do not trigger the change flag. If I recall correctly, this was causing problems for more people than it helped so they removed the option.
To find place details, try going to your Places list. Any place with details will have a number to the right side and if you click the > button, you will see what details a specific place has.
In a sense, the feature worked fine. All changed events went into the TreeShare changed list. The problem was that there was no way in TreeShare to approve the place change for all affected events all in one go. Instead, the user needed to approve the place change separately for each affected event. Depending on the place that was changed, this could mean hundreds or even thousands of separate approvals.
The problem is in the diametrically opposed requirements of people using Treeshare in two different ways.
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Those using Ancestry as their main repository obviously want to reflect everything back there (although doing so click by click would be laborious)
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Those just using Treeshare to put an RM tree onto Ancestry in order to generate web hints have no interest whatever in reflecting minor changes like tidying up place names, especially since it is so laborous.
I don’t know which group is larger, quite possibly the second one. In any event the process was amended to satisfy the needs of the second group.
Since the two requirements are so different, we need a flag at the user or file level to choose which way to go; all would also benefit if updating data via Treeshare were less laborious.
If there were a flag for everyone’s pet options, there would be no room in the program for genealogy. I personally would like a switch/flag/button on the file or program level that got rid of the sorry excuse for a user interface, but I am thinking that isn’t going to happen either!
Tedious and time consuming for sure - have always wished for a “mass update” feature but see how a mistake using it could be disastrous. Thanks for your reply.
I purchased Roots Magic to have the ability to add custom fields and “slice and dice” my data in ways that Ancestry or others do not facilitate. Roots Magic works well in that regard. It’s just in my nature to have clean, matching data in both places. Treeshare allows me to push my custom fields to Ancestry. where I can see the data when I am working there. Doing the bulk of my research in Ancestry allows me to push the results back to Root Magic. Manual entry for research done elsewhere can be entered in either place (depending on the nature of the entry) and shared to the other.
If I could just find the Place Details that do not translate to Ancestry I would be happy. Scrolling through the 10,000+ place names (hence the reason I am trying to clean up) to find the ones with details is also tedious.
Don’t know if this will help BUT under Custom facts , it show a way to select place details for A FA Adoption place details, Annulment place details etc
I’m not that familiar with Custom reports BUT think one of the guys should be able to tell you how to do it…
Are you also just cleaning up places as you said changing
If so, have you tried Places on the Left Side of the Screen
Events on right side of screen shows I have used St Louis, Mo 20 times-- can click on that and see everybody I’ve used it on-- can copy and paste that into notepad etc-- then I could change it to St Louis, Missouri, USA
I would try one and then try uploading it to Ancestry to see if it works…
When TreeShare for Ancestry was first released in version 7.5 modifying the Place List added anyone using it on the Change list. This updating caused the Place List to slow to the point it became unusable, especially when a lot of events were using the place modified. To many people thought it was broken and that is why it was pulled.
On the Places page you can see which places have place details by viewing the Details column count. If you generate a Place List report you can add the Place Details and see them there too.
Ancestry doesn’t have place details so we prepend the place details to the place when sending to Ancestry. When it comes back into RM the place name will come back as it was in Ancestry, all one place name.
To track which place names have been updated and which people were using it, create a group before making changes. Use the filter: Any Fact - place - contains - xxx. Give the exact place name it currently has to know exactly which individuals need to be updated once the place is edited or merged. Then use the group option in TreeShare index to update them.
Thanks for your response. I know what Place Details are and how to add them. What I don’t know is an easy way to find the 27 Place Details in my database that has over 11,000 Places. A list of Place Details would be nice to have.
I have tried the change method you referenced and it does flag a change that can be synced to Ancestry if I click on each event, go into the person affected, and change the location.
If, however, I select the Name “St. Louis, Mo” in your example, and change it to St Louis, Missouri, USA, it updates all 20 events - but does not flag a change that can be updated to Ancestry…
Over 11,000 Places is why I am trying to clean up and standardize them. (I see you need to do that also!)
I have tried running the “Who Was There” report, but it just hangs up my computer and I end up having to CTL-ALT-DEL to end the task. I’m hoping that once I clean it up I will be able to run that report.
Yes, I see how a change to a Place with a large number of events could be problematic. I have over 11,000 Places. I hae tried scrolling through them to find the ones that have a number greater than 0 in details column. Not easy.
The Group is a good idea, but I suspect that when I go to Ancestry with that list of names and make the changes there, I will get a list of sync changes in Roots Magic for which I will have to click through 1 x 1 and mark as not changed. I will try it with a small group though. Thanks for the idea.
As to the Place List Report. I have tried that. I have Print Place Details and Print Place Notes checked. when I run it. What I get is a 189 page list of Place Names. One column only and if the Place Details and Notes are there I haven’t seen them with a quick look at 30-40 random pages.
Finding place details under the place names is easier on the Place list if you don’t include notes, lat/long, pictures or events. You just want a straight named list. The indent for the place details will stand out that way. Make sure you have reverse place names selected.
Thanks. Reversing was helpful.
There is many of us that use RM as our main repository AND want all the changes also shared with with Ancestry and are suffering severe hand cramping due to the tens of thousands of clicks necessary to make that happen.
I see exactly why the place changes don’t trigger the update due to the severe burden it could cause, be are extremely dissatisfied with the reason it’s there.
Regarding #6, when I find a place which I want to standardize, (change “United States of America,” “USA,”, “US,” etc.to “United States”) I go to “Places” in the left column, search for the city, state, or county, and then merge them all to the one I want to keep. The only problem is that you have to do this over and over again until you find all the cities, states, and counties.
You could also do a search for all places with “United States of America,” for example, and then work your way through them all.
In your example, you could reverse the place names ( under the 3 dots) then do a search and replace ( also under 3 dots)—would take several times but it will change them all to one thing-- just a suggestion