Is "location unknown" overused?

Question

This is more of a suggestion than a question. When doing matches or looking up people, I often encounter whole family groups that are "location unknown" for birth, marriage, death, everything. Looking up and down through generations there will usually finally be someone who has a location.

I realize that it is important to not introduce suspected information as fact, but if the family is in -say- England, would it be terrible to include "of England" as a location for birth or death? It seems that there should be some way of indicating the general geographical location of a family whilst acknowledging that the information is not firm.

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. Do you mean when the location isn't filled in, and you see [place of birth?], [place of death?], etc.?

I absolutely agree that anything is better than nothing in these fields. Usually at least a country is known for at least one life event! I mean, if it isn't, what sources could possibly be used for the names and dates that don't include any locations? That would make me doubt all the info given.

Also, if a location is suspected but not certain, that's what the confidence levels are for. It can easily be marked as uncertain, and then it's clear that it's not known fact, but at least it's a guideline.

Comments

What I mean is the birth will be 1776 [location unknown] and all other information in the sibling list will be the same, so it becomes very difficult to tell if the family and its members are in England, the colonies, or South America for that matter. Even an indication marked uncertain would help to  take care of rejected merges which are as important as merges.

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Oh, we're actually talking about the same thing. I just realised that. [location unknown] is what you see on the public view of a profile, while [place of birth?] is the same thing on the private view.

But yes, you're absolutely right. People should fill in any info they have on places, however vague.