Need to correct the recomended use of "United Kingdom" from 1801 to 1922

StewartTM

For place names in England, Wales and Scotland - FamilySearch indicates the use of "United Kingdom" from 1801.

However - the 1801 version of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" was replaced in 1922 with the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

This results in the "United Kingdom" designation being attched to locations in England, Wales and Scotland from 1801 to the present . . . in fact, using the wrong lapsed version of the "United Kingdom".

Also results in no location in the whole of Ireland using the "United Kingdom" designation over the period 1801-1922 when such Irish locations were in fact part of the 1801 "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" - the same "United Kingdom" as FS recommends to apply to England, Wales and Scotland.

Simply put - I believe that FS has confused the lapsed 1801 "United Kingdom" - which should not be used - with the current 1922 "United Kindom" - and needs to revise the the recommeded use of "United Kingdom" from 1801 to 1922 (the start of the current re-constituted "United Kingdom").

See the attached handout I have produced for FHC visitors.

My personal interest in this - is that I am Irish and also British - and FS have clearly got their recommended dates for use of "United Kingdom" wrong.

ECameron27

Thank-you for your input as it is much appreciated. I have referred your comments up line.

danvreeves

In the case of United Kingdom (as well as a number of other large administrative areas), FamilySearch Places chooses to act more as a classification system (e.g. Biology) and less as an encyclopedia. The primary goal in having the place service behave in this way is to effectively share meaning.

To that end, we intentionally paint with a broad brush at the country level and at large administrative areas. A quest to be completely historically accurate with these higher-level places could explode the data - resulting in many historic descriptions of a single village and making it difficult for users to identify and use the best available place standard.

FS Places recognizes "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" - and several other variations on the name as an alternate name. Any query for an available, alternate name is funneled to matching place standards (hopefully the list of matches is small enough and distinct enough to give confidence in the correct choice).

As for Ireland, FS Places represents it as a top-level country for all of its known history. It has a "Related Place" connection to the United Kingdom and a note explaining that it was a constituent part of the UK from 1801 to 1922.

Feel free to email further questions on this topic to placefeedback@familysearch.org.