In The Master Genealogist (TMG), you enter the location where an event took place into a Tag Entry Screen. The Master Place List (accessed through the Utilities menu) contains a complete listing of these location entries. Choosing Realign/Edit shows the Master Place List in a grid, where each column contains a portion of a place and each row contains a unique combination of these elements to make up a place as entered on Tag Entry Screens. It is useful to examine the Master Place List periodically to ensure that all places are entered consistently and completely and that the elements are in the proper columns.

The labels given to the elements of a location range from smallest to largest as is common in the United States (Detail, City/Town, County, State, and Country). These labels are for convenience only; they are never printed on reports. Therefore, if a location in a foreign country that uses a different scheme is entered, it is only necessary to make sure that the elements are used consistently throughout the data set. Scanning the Master Place List will make any inconsistencies apparent.

Other inconsistencies that may come to light are spelling errors, typographical errors, and the use of abbreviations in some records and full names in others. You may also find that the name of a place in your records has changed over time and that this change is sometimes recorded and sometimes not. It is recommended that you record both names (the name current at the time of the event and the name in use today, e.g., “Jeffersonville {now Tazewell}” or “York County {now Adams County}”). Another recommended practice is to include “County,” “Parish,” “Canton,” etc., as part of the name to avoid confusion in printed reports, e.g., “Washington County,” “County Dublin.”

After a direct import from another genealogy program or from a GEDCOM file, you may need to shift elements from one column to another.

All of these corrections may be made on the Realign/Edit screen or on the Search/Replace screen if the same change needs to be made to several places (such as changing the state element from “VA” to “Virginia”). These changes will then automatically affect every Tag Entry Screen that contains the edited place. For this reason, it is very important to avoid making changes that will affect the accuracy of the record. For instance, if the location of an event is given by a particular source as only a city and state, it would not be advisable to add the county name unless you can verify its accuracy at the time of the event. A timeline that lists the formation dates for counties in a particular state can be a useful resource for this purpose. Several such timelines contributed by users are provided with TMG.

You may want to use an exclusion marker (hyphen) for such added information, so that it can be distinguished from the data provided by the source. You might also use sensitivity brackets, {}, as shown in the previous paragraph. Then, when you want to print a report which accurately reflects the information provided by the various sources you are citing, you can choose not to print the added information; when you are printing reports to guide your future research, you can include everything.

After making corrections, always be sure to run File/Data Set/Optimize to purge the Master Place List of all obsolete records.

While entering new tags on a Tag Entry Screen, you can check how certain places have been entered in the past by placing the cursor on one of the place fields and pressing [F2]. A variation of the Master Place List will be presented containing all entries that have been made into that field, plus all subsequent place fields. You may then highlight your choice, and all the displayed place elements will be entered at once into the appropriate place fields on the Tag Entry Screen. (This method is not recommended for routine entry of places because it involves a little delay while the places are gathered and sorted. The larger your data set is, the longer the delay will be. Using the repeat keys, [F3] and [CTRL+F3], is a faster method of data entry.)

Regular maintenance of the Master Place List will improve the quality of your reports and support effective research planning.

Lissa Soergel is the first e-mail contact for most TMG users seeking technical support. She also edits the newsletter, TMG News, and the Reference Manual. Her genealogical research interests at present are focused on the family of her maternal grandmother, a descendant of Tennessee pioneers. Lissa can be reached at tmg@whollygenes.com.