Problems with geocoding and google maps

[philipt18]

There are two issues with places that seem contradictory. First, places are not structured - i.e. Reunion doesn't know what is a street, city, state, country, etc. I wish it did.

However, being that locations are free-form, there is another contradictory problem. If I have a place and I tell it to search for the geocode, it only searches for the location based on how it is written. This is very problematic since in many cases if not most, a place is not written how Google expects.

I have a good example, but this might be a bug that causes it.

For a wedding I have the name of the hall in the place:

Grand Prospect Hall, Brooklyn, NY

Searching for the geocode through Reunion finds one option:

Hall St, Brooklyn, NY, USA

If I search for the exact same text on Google Maps find the correct location:

Grand Prospect Hall
263 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

I don't know why Reunion finds a different location than Google Maps directly, but presumably that is a bug. Even so, I think there should be a way for me to keep the place name as I want it, and tell it to search for the geocode for 263 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, NY and assign it to that place.

Truthfully, I'd prefer in the long run that Reunion structure places, so there are fields for location name, street number, street name, apt number, city, state, country, etc. and that addresses are validated if possible (for addresses that still exist). There are bound to be locations that can't be validated or even structured, but in those cases, the 'location name' field could be used as it is today without any of the structured fields. The the person wants the address to show up as 263 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, NY then they could just leave the 'location name' field blank and it would display the structured address.

As an aside, there are APIs for validating addresses which might be useful, at least with addresses that currently exist. UPS, for example, has an API for validating addresses in 40 different countries (http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/bus...alidation.html) and there are various other commercial and free (https://webgis.usc.edu/Services/Addr...n/Default.aspx) services for this type of thing. To some extent the Google Maps API itself can validate addresses which might be the easiest. Basically you want to feed in an address, have it find that address in the database, and confirm that the address exists. Validation can also force addresses to conform to pre-defined consistent rules, such as how to write/abbreviate Street (St), Avenue (Av), Boulevard (Blvd), etc. and can expand a 5 digit ZIP code to a 9 digit code.

Philip

[theKiwi]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

I do not agree that places need to be forced in to a structure by Reunion requiring parts of a place name to be in different fields - how each user "structures" their places as a text string is ultimately up to them and that should be sufficient without requiring elements of this to shoehorned into a predetermined set of boxes also.

But I do agree that the current implementation of geocoding is lacking some critical functionality - mainly the opportunity to click on the map and say "I want the pin exactly here". - whether here is a particular house or cottage on a farm, or a church, or a cemetery, or even a position in a cemetery if known - let me zoom the map in and then click on the exact spot I think is appropriate to capture the latitude and longitude of that position.

Roger

[philipt18]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

As I said, nothing needs to be forced and users should be able to use free-form if they want, but adding structure allows one to list all the locations in one city or one state or one country, etc. which is not possible now.

I do not agree that places need to be forced in to a structure by Reunion requiring parts of a place name to be in different fields - how each user "structures" their places as a text string is ultimately up to them and that should be sufficient without requiring elements of this to shoehorned into a predetermined set of boxes also.

[thboyd]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

. . . but adding structure allows one to list all the locations in one city or one state or one country, etc. which is not possible now.

I think that the "reverse place name" sort does almost what you want, if you have structured your places correctly. I list all places by place, address, county, state, country. A "Reverse Place Name Sort" groups all places by country, within that group the states are grouped together, within each states the counties are grouped together, etc.

[thronborg]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

I have the same problem.
Here in Denmark Everything is divided From county, Parrige, Village. Since many of the ld places dont exisst any more, at least not in Google Maps. So this function is quite useless at the moment for me.

Ole

[thronborg]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

I think that the "reverse place name" sort does almost what you want, if you have structured your places correctly. I list all places by place, address, county, state, country. A "Reverse Place Name Sort" groups all places by country, within that group the states are grouped together, within each states the counties are grouped together, etc.

What do you mean if you have structured your places correctly? In US it ok. But here in Denmark we have been used the reversed way and still do in all genealogy research. And i have 6000 people witten in the reverse order. Even if Reunion can sort in reverse order dont make any different in Google maps.

Ole

[thronborg]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

I do not agree that places need to be forced in to a structure by Reunion requiring parts of a place name to be in different fields - how each user "structures" their places as a text string is ultimately up to them and that should be sufficient without requiring elements of this to shoehorned into a predetermined set of boxes also.

But I do agree that the current implementation of geocoding is lacking some critical functionality - mainly the opportunity to click on the map and say "I want the pin exactly here". - whether here is a particular house or cottage on a farm, or a church, or a cemetery, or even a position in a cemetery if known - let me zoom the map in and then click on the exact spot I think is appropriate to capture the latitude and longitude of that position.

Roger

I fully agree! Just let us put the PIN where we want it, even if Google maps dont find it.

Ole.

[Frank]

Moving the pin on the map

I fully agree! Just let us put the PIN where we want it, even if Google maps dont find it.

You can do this. The feature was added in version 10.0.2, which was sometime after the prior comment was posted.

[theKiwi]

Re: Moving the pin on the map

You can do this. The feature was added in version 10.0.2, which was sometime after the prior comment was posted.

I'm still waiting patiently for my other request - to be able to modify the search terms for the place, without changing the actual place, so that places not found on first pass can be "homed in on" by modifying what is being searched for.

The attached screen shot shows a place in my file as seen by TNG (I developed the mapping feature for this software). The place is called


Achormlary, Dornoch, Sutherland, Scotland

Reunion can't find this - offering just "Scotland, UK"

In TNG I can modify the search (in the "Geocode Location" box) to remove the first part (or any part if I wish in fact), and then Google is capable of finding

Dornoch, Sutherland, Scotland

and from there I can move the pin around a bit more if I have some knowledge to place the pin more accurately.

I wish for Reunion to offer this same ability - to modify the search and submit it again without altering the actual place name.

Roger

[Matt Falvey]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

Hi, I just noticed this thread and I still have 9.0 and have been considering moving up to 10. And like Roger I have made my locations exact in TNG, by changing them on the Geocode Location box.

Now this is probably rare by with the new feature I am concerned would this feature overide the settings that I have manually loaded in TNG when I import a Gedcom to update the tree? (There is an "Import latitude/longitude data it present" option which I have routinely enabled which now is looking onerous and more dangerous in version 10.)

Thanks

Matt

[Mark]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

Hi Matt,

Now this is probably rare by with the new feature I am concerned would this feature overide the settings that I have manually loaded in TNG when I import a Gedcom to update the tree?

Are you asking about going from Reunion to TNG, or from TNG to Reunion?

For Reunion 10's part, it will import geocodes from a GEDCOM, and if there is a goecode for a place in Reunion, it will export that geocode to a GEDCOM. I don't know how TNG handles geocodes in an imported GEDCOM, you would need to check with them.

Note, however, that you have to explicitly choose to Geocode a place in Reunion -- it will not do it automatically. Also, you can manually enter a geocode for a place in Reunion 10.

HTH

[theKiwi]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

Now this is probably rare by with the new feature I am concerned would this feature overide the settings that I have manually loaded in TNG when I import a Gedcom to update the tree? (There is an "Import latitude/longitude data it present" option which I have routinely enabled which now is looking onerous and more dangerous in version 10.)

If you don't check the "Import Latitude and Longitude" in TNG then it won't import the lat/long from a Reunion GEDCOM file and so won't overwrite the geocodes for places that you've got in TNG.

Roger

[Matt Falvey]

Re: Problems with geocoding and google maps

Thanks, for the replies, will not tick the import latitude/longitude box, when I make the upgrade.

Matt.