German Colonies in Russia

K.Evans - volunteer

Please add all of the German Colonies in Russia as place names. As a Family Research consultant I get so many requests for these to be included. For example Kassel, Glueckstal, Odessa, South Russia is now called Velykokomarivka, Velyka Mykhailivka, Odessa, Ukraine. When you type in the Kassel... name you get Velykokomarivka.... I know that that probably indicates that Kassel changed to the new name. HOWEVER, family of those from the colonies are very offended that the original name is not there. I suggested notations in the Life Sketch about the name change. I've also suggested putting the name change as a custom fact and in the birth "box", but there's not a lot of satisfaction with this. If you need help in researching the colony names and places, I would volunteer to help. I know that this is all on line and on various sites, but I think this is so important. Please let me know if this can be done. K Evans

Gordon Collett

Sounds like this will be a big project. While waiting for the Places database to be improved, be sure to teach everyone you know the proper use of standards. Stress the fact that the standards list is extremely far from complete and that the actual purpose of the standards is just two fold: 1) as text substitutes for latitude and longitude so places can be mapped and 2) a way to quickly enter a place name without spelling errors.

Since Kassel is correctly included as a variant name for Velykokomarivka, teach everyone that the correct way to enter it for the historical time period it was named Kassel is:

so that it displays correctly as;

You may want to re-post your request under the FamilySearch Places group. I think it is more likely to be seen by the right people there: https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/68-familysearch-places

WendiBallard

Yes I am having the same problem. I have been working on German colonies in Russia for over ten years, and the ones I research were on there up until the last year or so. As a result, now some of the people I have reserved have come up as not available to work on because the places were taken off, and no longer are standardized. It seems silly to me that they are being removed when before they were valid (and believe me, are still valid as I have numerous sources, censuses, etc. of the very places being taken off.

Gina Strack

You might have some more success with different spellings. It took me a couple of tries and referencing some of the great resources out there for this research (ex. https://www.glueckstal.net).

I found and used as standardized Glückstal, Kherson, Russian Empire (https://www.familysearch.org/research/places/?focusedId=10928950&searchTypeaheadInputText=Gl%C3%BCckstal&text=Gl%C3%BCckstal) to replace a lot of places that had been standardized over time to Moldova.

FamilySearch Places have great abilities to associate different spellings over different time periods, but yes the info needs to be entered in the first place.

Annette Unrau Adams

Please consider putting the original Germans from Russia names in the notes, and in the Discussion box. If you put the place name in the biographical sketch it can be changed. I know this is extra work, and this topic will need to be addressed. I don't think the engineers who are working to standardize place names understand this issue, however, in Poland this is a similar issue with German names, and those names being changed back to Polish names. As researchers, and village coordinators, we need to know the different names of our ancestors home villages. I understand the reasoning behind maintaining the original Germans from Russian colony names, however, those places are now Russian, or something else. I think most of the Germans from Russia websites that have a search feature for German colonies, provide both the name the colonists gave their villages, and what they are today.