Spelling Names of Places Incorrectly

I may be a little bit too picky, but when reviewing a GEDCOM file if I see names of places spelled incorrectly (especially names of counties in the United States when the database is compiled by an American researcher), I get a little skeptical of the rest of the file.

Of course, the occasional typo is one thing (which can easily be avoided in most programs by the way), but if the database I find has some of these spellings:

• Hartford County, Maryland
• Amhurst County, Virginia
• Schuler County, Illinois

then I am a little worried about the rest of the data. Call me persnickity, but genealogy is about details. If place names that are established and standard (as these are) are not spelled correctly, how certain can I be that names, dates, and relationships are entered in the way they should be?

I’m not talking about someone trying to read the name of a German town on a nearly illegible death certificate–that’s something different altogether.