Italy vs Italia

LucaRossi1974

The italian name of my country is ITALIA.

But when using it in place definition, it is not accepted by FamilyTree, that ask me to change it to ITALY.

The same happens with some regions (LOMBARDY instead of LOMBARDIA, etc..)

WHY?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

If you switch to the Italian language and use the Italian template, the place names will be accepted in Italian.

Gordon Collett

@LucaRossi1974 One of the unique features of Family Tree that provides an unlimited flexibility for entering correct place names is its dual place name entry system in which we as users are required to enter place names twice. First as a free-form text place name and second as a program-defined reference place name. Then we are required to link these together so that the program knows what spot on the globe the free-form version represents. This works so smoothly that a lot of users never realize what they are doing and never take advantage of the power this gives us to enter accurate, precise, and complete place names in any language.

Thanks for providing a platform to review this place name system once again in the hopes that an expanding pool of users understand the program better.

In the middle illustration that Julia posted above, the red line of text is the free-form name. The rest of the drop-down menu contains various reference values suggested by the program. These reference values also serve as a "quick entry" system because if the name you want to use shows up there, you can click on that reference name and use it as both the free-form value and the reference value without needing to type out the entire name.

Correctly linking the free-form name and the reference name is called "standardization" in FamilySearch.

The reference place names are contained in the Places database ( http://familysearch.org/research/places/ ). It is incomplete so sometimes a correct place name has to be linked to a more general reference value such as just the county, state, or even country like this:

This "place name" is entered correctly and linked to a less complete reference value.

For a full explanation of how and to uses this feature of Family Tree, please view my presentation on the subject at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLa5PC4RPPk

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Places that have an English name (which tends to be only the higher jurisdictions, like countries) come up in English on the standards drop-down if the language is currently set to English. However, this does not mean that you can't enter them in Italian -- or any other language you'd like.

To enter a place in a different language than your current interface language, just type out the full placename, as you'd like for it to appear, then click the reddish text on the top line of the drop-down.

This keeps the text you typed as the display value, and associates it with the first pin from the drop-down for the background ("standard") value. If the first pin is not the one you want, you can click the down-arrow on the standard box and make a different selection.

Gordon Collett

@LucaRossi1974 if you have a lot of place names to enter in Italian, then you will want to change the website to Italian as Áine suggests. This lets you take advantage of the "quick entry" feature of entering place names. Just to demonstrate how this works, I'm going to expand on her comments a bit.

All you need to do is to go up to the right hand corner, click on the globe icon, and choose Italian:

Now when you enter place names, all the drop down menu reference values will be in Italian:

and if an appropriate place name shows up, you can click on it right way to use that value as the free-form entry and the linked reference value. Here is how it looks in the data view pop up after entering the place name:

While set to Italian, you can still enter place names in any language you want by typing out the entire name and choosing the red text:

Note that when you change the site back to English or to any other language, the free-form place name stays exactly as you entered it and the linked reference value changes to the new language:

This preserves your preferred style of the name but allows other users to see what the place is if they do not understand the language it has been entered in. This is very useful if a user is working in something like Chinese: