Hi Paul: Agreed - but the difference is that there has been quite a lot of work done on techniques for doing approximate searching of surnames, which major search facilities take advantage of, compared to the situation with place names. I've not found a major search facility which uses the approach of looking up a table of variant place names - though I'd not be surprised if there is one or more that does it. Cheers Brian On 2 Jan 2014, at 21:41, Paul Hockie <paul.hockie@talk21.com> wrote: > Brian, > > The same, of course, applies to names, particularly as you move back to the > 16/17th century. > > The National Archives uses the brackets approach to ensure that any > reference can be found from the standard name. One other approach I have > seen is that the query first takes the "old" spelling and looks up the > standard spelling from a table. The query then only runs against the > standard spelling and only the standard spelling is included in the record. > This seems to be more common amongst Irish and Scottish names with Mc, Mac, > O' as well as Gaelic spelling. Both approaches often have a soundex (or > equivalent) and/or a drop down based options. > > Cheers > > Paul > > -----Original Message----- > From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On > Behalf Of Brian Randell > Sent: 01 January 2014 23:17 > To: <devon@rootsweb.com> > Cc: Brian Randell > Subject: [DEV] Finding places: WAS Mary Jane VOOGHT [SMERDON] died 1952 > > Hi: > > Kate's account of how to find places is very useful - at least for > *present-day* place names. > > However, a big problem for which there doesn't seem to be a good general > solution, is how to find places which are named on old documents, > transcriptions, etc., when spelling was erratic, and all sorts of spelling > errors can have crept in. Various major search facilities do a reasonably > good job of finding variant surnames, but I don't know of any which make > good allowance for variant, mis-spelled, or archaic place names. (Does > anybody?) Certainly services like StreetMapUK are completely unforgiving > with regard to place name spelling - for example it will not find "Liverton" > if one searches for "Livertone" or "Leverton". > > This is a problem we have faced in preparing the Devon Wills Project (DWP) > database for inclusion in the National Wills Index (NWI) - which > incidentally has a particularly good facility for searching surname > variants, a facility which we are looking forward to being able to use on > DWP. > > The (labour-intensive) solution we have adopted is to add manually, enclosed > in square brackets, the "standard" parish name after any variant parish > name, or non-parish place name). It would I suppose be possible to produce a > "complete" variant parish name index for Devon using these additions to the > DWP database, but given the additions we have made this isn't needed for > NWI's DWP search place name service, so isn't currently planned. > > The extent of the problem is illustrated by the fact that we've found, for > example, no less than 12 variants of Paignton, 17 of Clovelly, and 46 of > Bishopsteignton in our DWP database! > > Even for Plymouth we've found a couple of dozen, namely: Playmouth, > Pleamouth, Plemothe, Plimmouth, Plimo, Plimoath, Plimoth, Plimouh, Plimouth, > Plimouthe, Plinoth, Plumouth, Ply, Plymmothe, Plymmouth, Plymmouthe, > Plymmowth, Plymoath, Plymomouth, Plymoth, Plymothe, Plymouth, Plymouthe, > Plympmouth, and Plymth! > > In these circumstances about all I can offer, in addition to Kate's advice, > and the use of standard place name reference books, such as Gover, J.E.B, > Mawer, A. and Stenton, F.M. (eds.) The Place-names of Devon. Cambridge: > University Press (1931) 2 vols and Wilson, John M. The Imperial Gazetteer of > England and Wales. Six Volumes. Edinburgh, Scotland: A. Fullerton, 1870, > are: > > - The Online Gazetteer derived from White's 1850 Dictionary: > http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Gazetteer/ > > - Guide to the Manors of Devon: http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonManors/ > > (both the above enable one to identify the parish a given place belongs > to) > > - Various other references listed at > http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/index.html#NamesGeographical > > Suggestions for improving this listing are welcome. > > Cheers > > Brian Randell > > > On 1 Jan 2014, at 12:26, Kate Burhouse wrote: > >> Hi Bev >> >> When trying to find a location in the UK, our Ordnance Survey maps are >> invaluable. All the places shown on the 1:50,000 maps are indexed and >> you can search on this site: >> >> http://www.streetmap.co.uk/ >> >> If you search for Liverton, you'll find 3 entries in Devon. One is a >> farm near Exmouth, but the other two are in the area that you're > interested in. >> The links take you to the 1:50,000 OS map (zoom level 4), and if you >> zoom in another layer it takes you to the 1:25,000 map which is >> detailed enough to show field boundaries and in this case shows 'Old >> Leys Wood' but does not name the actual farm (unusual). There are >> buildings near the wood which look likely, so zoom in again and you'll see > them marked as 'Old Leys Farm'. >> >> http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=280558&Y=75394&A=Y&Z=106 >> >> Now that you have a location you can look at the Historical maps for >> the area on http://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html >> >> Just copy the coordinates from the Streetmap webpage (280558,75394) >> and enter them on the Old Maps website, then select from the various >> available maps on the right hand side of the page - the 1:2,500 are >> the most detailed and make sure you zoom in to see the best detail. >> >>> From this you'll see that back in 1905 it was known as 'Old Lays' >>> farm/wood >> so this may help with research. >> >> The other thing that I like to do (and you probably already know >> about) is to take a virtual stroll down the road using Google maps or > Earth... >> >> http://tinyurl.com/p6gu7ma >> >> With best wishes >> >> Kate >> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] >>> On Behalf Of B. Edmonds >>> Sent: 01 January 2014 05:16 >>> To: DEVON@rootsweb.com >>> Subject: [DEV] Mary Jane VOOGHT [SMERDON] died 1952 >>> >>> I am stuck again. >>> >>> Does anyone know where Old Leys Farm, Liverton is? >>> Liverton is not in the Gazatteer so assume it is meant to Tiverton. >>> >>> The name is from the Index to Ancestry Wills, which now I cannot find >>> to double check, somewhere on a memory stick I suppose. She died 17 >>> Dec >>> 1952 and I would love to know where she is buried also. Her husband I >>> believe is Sydney John VOOGHT born 1870 at East Ogwell, anyone have >>> his birth date please? He died 21 Mar 1917 at Rattery, and assume he >>> is buried there. >>> >>> They married Mar Q 1893 at East Stonehouse. >>> >>> I am no good with Google maps, they confuse me. >>> >>> Bev >>> >>> ------------------------------------------ >>> The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( >>> http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS >>> (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at >>> http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DEVON- >>> request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >>> in the subject and the body of the message >> >> ------------------------------------------ >> The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( >> http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS >> (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at >> http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > -- > School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, > NE1 7RU, UK > EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 > FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell > > > > > > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( > http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS > (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > and > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > List archive for Devon can be found at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell