RootsChat.Com

General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Paul 77 on Sunday 13 March 22 11:06 GMT (UK)

Title: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: Paul 77 on Sunday 13 March 22 11:06 GMT (UK)
Something that’s been bugging me for a while, apologies if it’s not new, but search wasn’t helpful.

On the Find-a-Grave website, it’s apparent that someone has systematically added the names of what they consider is the appropriate “unitary authority” to many (most?) cemetery locations. 

For example every cemetery location in Northumberland ends with “Northumberland Unitary Authority, Northumberland”.

I spend so much time deleting this guff from events created from these sources - it is of no relevance to standard address formats as they are normally used. 

Does anyone else think it’s been a mistake to add this info to their database?
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: rosie99 on Sunday 13 March 22 11:27 GMT (UK)
Presumably the information was added by the creators of the website  :-\.  Now run by Ancestry

From the one I have just looked at near to me it gives the local authority name and by selecting that it shows all of the cemeteries on the site within that Council area.  It also gives the option to search all council areas in the county.  If I was 'new' to research in that area I would find that information helpful. 

This link takes you to all of those under the Northumberland Unitary Authority 'Banner'.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01rcq/
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: Paul 77 on Sunday 13 March 22 11:38 GMT (UK)
Presumably the information was added by the creators of the website  :-\.  Now run by Ancestry

From the one I have just looked at near to me it gives the local authority name and by selecting that it shows all of the cemeteries on the site within that Council area.  It also gives the option to search all council areas in the county.  If I was 'new' to research in that area I would find that information helpful. 

This link takes you to all of those under the Northumberland Unitary Authority 'Banner'.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01rcq/
I can just about see that being of limited use, if you’re trying to be sure you’ve found all the relevant locations, but I believe it shouldn’t be displayed as part of the address the way they’re doing it when creating links to sources.
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: rosie99 on Sunday 13 March 22 11:45 GMT (UK)
The trouble is it is part of the website and not put on by the people submitting records, it looks as though the problem you have can only be sorted by Ancestry.com
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: rosie99 on Sunday 13 March 22 11:55 GMT (UK)
This is the page that causes the problem
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/England/Northumberland?id=state_4235

Clicking on their list of Counties on this link you can see how they have divided up other counties into districts
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/England?id=country_5

Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: Paul 77 on Sunday 13 March 22 12:37 GMT (UK)
This is the page that causes the problem
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/England/Northumberland?id=state_4235

Clicking on their list of Counties on this link you can see how they have divided up other counties into districts
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery-browse/England?id=country_5

Yes, and I suppose because Northumberland is a one tier county, it’s already superfluous information. If you were to check say Hampshire,  you get all the districts including Portsmouth and Southampton.  Both areas are unitary authorities within the geographic county but I still don’t think they are needed as part of the location name or addresses...

In other words, where they read  “XYZ cemetery, Southampton, Southampton Unitary Authority, Hampshire, <postcode>“;  the second Southampton &UA is also unnecessary.
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: bikermickau on Sunday 13 March 22 12:50 GMT (UK)
I had asked this question some time back on a FindaGrave forum and the answer was that they are current addresses.
I find it damn annoying when editing or creating grave sites.

Something that’s been bugging me for a while, apologies if it’s not new, but search wasn’t helpful.

On the Find-a-Grave website, it’s apparent that someone has systematically added the names of what they consider is the appropriate “unitary authority” to many (most?) cemetery locations. 

For example every cemetery location in Northumberland ends with “Northumberland Unitary Authority, Northumberland”.

I spend so much time deleting this guff from events created from these sources - it is of no relevance to standard address formats as they are normally used. 

Does anyone else think it’s been a mistake to add this info to their database?
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: andrewalston on Sunday 13 March 22 13:05 GMT (UK)
It is worse when the place concerned is under a different local government area than when the event happened.

Warrington, for example had two parts. North of the Mersey was in Lancashire; to the south was in Cheshire. People would often report their places of birth with the appropriate county, but more commonly for the southern part, the relevant small township such as Latchford.

In 1974, the whole of Warrington was moved to the control of Cheshire County Council.

Later it became a Unitary Authority.

Find-a-Grave reports Warrington as being in Cheshire. Most of it isn't in the Traditional County. None of it is in the control of the current Cheshire County Council. It is just WRONG.
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: rosie99 on Sunday 13 March 22 13:15 GMT (UK)
I do agree with you Paul that listing Northumberland as it is needs changing to break it into smaller districts.

Perhaps they should be entering them all as they were before local government reorganisation in 1974 - County councils with the Rural and Urban district councils that came under them and not forgetting London indexed as it was as LCC before the GLC was formed in 1965.  ;D

Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: Paul 77 on Sunday 13 March 22 14:55 GMT (UK)
I had asked this question some time back on a FindaGrave forum and the answer was that they are current addresses.
I find it damn annoying when editing or creating grave sites.

But I’d reply (to whoever said that) they’re not “current addresses” at all. So if they really want to use current addresses they should use the post office preferred format, which doesn’t usually use the words “unitary authority” at all. Indeed they rarely even use county names nowadays…
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: bikermickau on Sunday 13 March 22 22:20 GMT (UK)
Looks like I may have been mistaken when I stated I asked.

I might have looked at this.
https://support.findagrave.com/s/article/How-do-I-add-a-location-that-does-not-show-in-your-database
"Historical locations or other civil divisions will not be added to the database. If you need to use an historical location, reference it in the bio of either the cemetery or memorial in question. We currently have no plans to add another civil division. We are working on updating the location database, specifically within the international portion of the database. We do not have a specific estimated time of completion for any given country."

I had asked this question some time back on a FindaGrave forum and the answer was that they are current addresses.
I find it damn annoying when editing or creating grave sites.

But I’d reply (to whoever said that) they’re not “current addresses” at all. So if they really want to use current addresses they should use the post office preferred format, which doesn’t usually use the words “unitary authority” at all. Indeed they rarely even use county names nowadays…
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: Kiltpin on Sunday 13 March 22 23:34 GMT (UK)
I agree with Paul, very annoying. Especially since our church and graveyard has its own address and postcode. Which does not include "Breckland District Unitary Authority. 

Regards 

Chas
Title: Re: Find a Grave addresses, England
Post by: andrewalston on Monday 14 March 22 15:13 GMT (UK)
Perhaps they should be entering them all as they were before local government reorganisation in 1974 - County councils with the Rural and Urban district councils that came under them and not forgetting London indexed as it was as LCC before the GLC was formed in 1965.  ;D

The problem is then where do you draw the line? Lots of places are historically not part of their 1973 counties.

For example London was a county of its own from 1889 until 1965.

Until 1844 Lindisfarne was part of County Durham, so that is where you'll find it in the 1841 census.