There are very good reasons to use 'meaningful' commas. I receive data that is unclear because they don't enter the data correctly. New York is a good example. Is it New York City, County or State?
Many States have cities and counties with the same name and if just one name with no delimiting commas are given, I am having to add a lot of extraneous information to notes to explain that I am unsure if it is the city or county. One real benefit of using counties is being able to sort all the people who have births or deaths or marriages in a certain county. Using short names to show how you want the locations to print in reports is the solution. Brian On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 23:54:16 -0500, John R. Bayle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jack wrote: > > <snip> > > > Maybe I am breaking hallowed rules, but for UK locations I use village, > > town, county, country or town, county, country. Of course that means I > can't > > easily find all locations in villages around a larger town and would > welcome > > suggestions for improving the ability to search - but I hate adding > > meaningless commas! > > Jack, I'm not into meaningless commas either. > I have very few "county" names in my database. Here are two typical > entries in my database. > "Glens Falls, New York". > Going by the "letter of the law", this should be: > "Glens Falls, Warren, New York, United States of America". > (I don't like using abbreviations, such as USA or NY -- that's another > discussion) > Similarly, > Montreal, Quebec > Which again by the "letter of the law", should be: > Montreal, Ille de Montreal, Quebec, Canada. > > I don't put in all the extra stuff, because anyone looking at my > file knows it's based in the United States. When I've traced a line > back to France, I do add France, the country to be sure folks know > we are talking about France and not Quebec. I have a lot of French > Canadians in my database. > > Montreal Quebec is so obvious to me that further explanation > is redundant and a waste of time. Similarly, Glens Falls, New York > is completely specified. I'm not aware of any place called > "New York" that is not in the USA, except for places like the > New York Bar in various cities around the world. Also, if one > looks at New York state, there is only one Glens Falls in the state. > If there were two and they were in different counties then I'd > name the counties. BTW there is a similar place called > West Glens Falls in the same county as Glens Falls, so adding > the county wouldn't help distinguish the two places, and there > is a South Glens Falls, but it's in a different county. But again, > adding the county adds very little if anything since the towns > are differently named even if similarly named. > > jr > > > > Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: > http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp > > To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ > > To unsubscribe please visit: > http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp > -- Brian Schultz Hood River, OR [EMAIL PROTECTED] Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
