see comments below BJ On 3/25/2015 12:10 PM, Christine Benson via wrote: > I have followed your advice BJ and merged it into a new file. I have > decided as a first step to resolve the place names as that should be fairly > automatic. I may put data in the address field later but am taking one step > at a time. So far it is working. Resolving Place names can mean several different activities. Have you attempted to move data from the Place name into the Place detail field? That was where you were encountering the crashes. If you are doing this, I take it to mean you are no longer experiencing the crashes after about 5 operations. If that is correct, then I think you have resolve the problem which I suspect were some corrupt addresses (pointers) in the Place table. By "addresses", I mean contents in fields which point or contain the record address to other data in the data base. Sometimes when these addresses/pointers become corrupted they may point to memory locations outside the area Windows has reserved for FTM information. When this happens Windows protects the other program's area by refusing FTM to use it. If FTM doesn't handle the error code returned by Windows, Windows terminates FTM. This is all computer jargon and you probably don't care about it but think of it this way. You live in one house and your next door neighbor lives in a different house. You leave yourself a note on where to find a book in your house but the note gets wet and blurry. When you read it, it directs you to go to your neighbor's house. When you attempt to enter the neighbor's house without permission, the security system prohibits your entry and goes off. That is sort of what happens within programs. > > But I have some specific questions. > > What do you do with the place Gold Coast, West Africa? I know it is now > Ghana but it wasn't at the time. I would probably handle it this way as I prefer to preserve the original data as much as possible. I would enter the Place name, "Gold Coast, West Africa" and leave it as unresolved. The "unresolved" indicator is simply an advisory flag which brings it to your attention. It doesn't mean the information is incorrect but simply alerts you the the fact it is not in the Place Name Authority data base. Alternately, if you want to get rid of the "unresolved" indicator, you can elect to ignore the alert. I recently encountered a similar case with the 1792 birth of an individual. The source says she was born in Hillsborough, Randolph, Virginia and it was marked as unresolved. I have tried to find any evidence of name changes etc. Current day Virginia has no county named Randolph. It does have a town named Hillsboro which was previously named Hillsborough but it is located in Loudoun County, Virginia. Now to make things even more complex, the current state of West Virginia was part of Virginia in the 1700's. So West Virginia has a county named Randolph but no town named Hillsborough. West Virginia does have a town named Hillsborough but it is in Pocahontas County which is no where near Randolph County. Ahhh what to do, what to do?? I handled it this way. I moved Hillsborough, Randolph County into the the Place Detail field and then resolved the Place Name to Virginia, USA. It may not be accurate based on today's names but I've preserved the historical name for this individual. > What do you do with Wadhurst, East Sussex? It wants to resolve it into > Wadhurst, Sussex but Sussex is now two counties, East and West and this is a > fairly recent event that I have entered the data for. Was it Wadhurst, East Sussex at the time of the event? Your comment implies it was Sussex some time ago but that has been changed to either East Sussex or West Sussex. Try to find when that split took place and compare that date to the event date and make your entry using the Place name at the time of the event. Here is a possible work around - a bit kludgy but it may suit you. Enter the name as Wadhurst, East, Sussex, United Kingdom or England. You can then move the information Wadhurst, East into the Place Detail and resolve the Sussex. The move feature moves information preceding the comma into the Place detail field. So the first move would move Wadhurst into the Place Detail. The subsequent move would move East into the Place Detail. > Where does the zip code belong in a US address. A lot of the locations I > have put it at the front but I am not sure how to resolve these. I suspect > eventually this will have to go into the address field but I am not sure of > the layout even then. US addresses sometimes seem more complex than UK ones; > some of the discussion some time ago seemed to involve the fact that a place > could be in two counties which completely confused me. The zip codes follow the state name abbreviation. E.g. 1313 E Ridge Route Road, Jackson WY 84211 ( this is for illustration only and is not accurate. Notice two things, the post office does not require or even desire a comma between the city, Jackson, and the state abbrieviation, WY. I'm sure most Americans are like me and put a comma there anyway but it is not required. Also notice the state abbreviation is two capital letters. Not the standard way of entering a state name or abbreviation but we're talking a big bureaucracy which is a law unto itself. Now that I've explained it, I will comment on its use. It is only useful for delivering mail and packages by the postal service. It has no bearing on the actual place. Therefore I do not record the postal zipcode as I don't see where it has any historical significance. Let me give you an example. I live in a rural area. The official postal address is Tetonia, ID 83452. However, I actually live closer to another post office in Felt, ID. I keep telling my grandchildren I live in Tetonia but they counter that I live closer to the Felt area.