Entry of places

Daniel Dumais

I wrote to you in the past pertaining to entry of places. I do not think it is getting any better. For instance the proper way is:

1-the city 2-the county 3-the province 4-the country

Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Why in your pop up you give 9 choices when in fact there is only one. If you could simplify the pop up and impose the proper way you could improve an already great progam.

Also it would be great to have an entry under places to enter the church name where that information was found ie "Notre-Dame Basilica".

I am including as an attachement all of the province of Québec. It is to my knowledge fairly complete. I beleive that no name should be translated and should retain its accent. The same applies for other provinces like British Columbia, Nova Scotia and so on. Let me know if the attachement does not go through.

If you start small let say Montréal and test it out I am sure that you would get a favourable response. Then you could proceed with the rest of the province. If all goes well I have all of Canada.

Thank you

Dan Dumais

5_Québec.txt

Gordon Collett

You have addressed this request to FamilySearch and that is not me, so feel free to ignore these comments.

The FamilySearch places database is an attempt to provide place names for every location on the earth in all time periods. As the database becomes more complete, you will find you have more and more options for a place name because place names and place boundaries have not remained static through history. Throughout history and through changing customs, there have been many ways to name a place. Very rarely is there ever "only one."

It is sometimes hard to see in FamilyTree what the different options really refer to, but if you go to the Place database and put in Montréal, Canada: https://www.familysearch.org/research/places/?searchTypeaheadInputText=Montréal,%20Canada&text=Montréal%2C%20Canada you will see twelve options that all refer to different geographical items:

• The city from 1644 to 1750
• The governorate from 1644 to 1763
• The city from 1867 to 1970
• The city from 1970 to 2001
• The independent city from 2002 to 2005
• The independent city from 2006 to today
• The town from 1705 to 1763
• The county from 1867 to 1970
• The county from 2006 to today
• The county from 2002 to today
• The county from 2002 to 2005
• The county from 1970 to 2001

I do not know enough about Canadian history or geography to know if all these are correct or not, but they should be referring to different jurisdictions which might have an implication for where records are to be found. It is the need to find records and the desire for historical accuracy that lead most people to record place names as they were at the time of an event. The Places database as it grows and includes more historical place names allows us to do that.

Regarding translations, the Places database is also structured to allow the name of a place to be entered in the language of the user. You can see all these translations under the Alternate name section. For example, Canada itself has dozens of translations. Here is the first part of the list:

These translations are important since FamilySearch is an international site used by people all over the world and it is certainly appropriate to allow users to enter their family information in their own language.

You can expect that as FamilySearch adds more more history and more languages, place name entry will become more complex, not less.

Paul W

@Gordon Collett

I must say I am a little surprised at your assertion that, "The FamilySearch places database is an attempt to provide place names for every location on the earth in all time periods".

As you well know, there appears to have been a change of thinking on this by "FamilySearch" recently, reflected by the dropping of the suffix "Territory" in place of "State" - so there is now no choice to standardize correctly for earlier periods in America's history.

I am not so sure that Daniel, "... can expect that as FamilySearch adds more more history and more languages, place name entry will become more complex, not less". That recent development (referenced above) shows FamilySearch might be more inclined to adopt a "simplified" approach to place names in future - ignoring accuracy for the sake of simplification.

Paul W

You can make up your own mind on what the future might hold by reading this official release:

See https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/when-did-familysearch-combine-us-states-and-their-historic-territories-in-familysearch-places

(This comment is not addressed to you, Gordon!)