On 11 Mar 2017, at 09:01, John Keith Coldwell <johnkcoldwell@gmail.com> wrote: > > Is the answer to adopt a standard glossary of places eg Ancestry.com > although I would not offer to go back and change the thousends of > names in my database. If one needs to standardize place names, Family Historian does make it easy to edit thousands of occurrences through a database across the board. But I think some discretion is needed. There is one case in my extended family where a 19th-century forebear had 5 marriages all in the same place (they were Zulu tribal marriages, so polygamous). The place in question, Vryheid now in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, was in different jurisdictions for 4 of the marriages, the Kingdom of Zululand, the short-lived New Republic (a secessionist Boer republic), the (Boer) South African Republic, and finally the Colony of Natal. (He died before it became a 5th jurisdiction, the Union of South Africa.) Any understanding of the history of the family would be erased if one standardized the name of the place, because he died intestate and the white family tried to argue that the marriages had not been legal - the argument turning of course on their legality under the various jurisdiction! s - in order to dispossess the black wives and get their hands on his money. Fortunately, they seem not to have succeeded. Geoff Chew 5389

But Geoff you would record all the places as found? Yes!! Well I would, I had the same experience the other day with Kegworth, Derbyshire and Leicestershire Paul 2627 On 11/3/17 10:02 AM, Geoff Chew wrote: > On 11 Mar 2017, at 09:01, John Keith Coldwell <johnkcoldwell@gmail.com> wrote: >> Is the answer to adopt a standard glossary of places eg Ancestry.com >> although I would not offer to go back and change the thousends of >> names in my database. > If one needs to standardize place names, Family Historian does make it easy to edit thousands of occurrences through a database across the board. But I think some discretion is needed. There is one case in my extended family where a 19th-century forebear had 5 marriages all in the same place (they were Zulu tribal marriages, so polygamous). The place in question, Vryheid now in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, was in different jurisdictions for 4 of the marriages, the Kingdom of Zululand, the short-lived New Republic (a secessionist Boer republic), the (Boer) South African Republic, and finally the Colony of Natal. (He died before it became a 5th jurisdiction, the Union of South Africa.) Any understanding of the history of the family would be erased if one standardized the name of the place, because he died intestate and the white family tried to argue that the marriages had not been legal - the argument turning of course on their legality under the various jurisdicti! ons - in order to dispossess the black wives and get their hands on his money. Fortunately, they seem not to have succeeded. > > Geoff Chew 5389 > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb Surname List - are your interests there? > http://rsl.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message