Standard Place Names for old named places

FLQR

As I logged in today, I was prompted to update the standard place name for Colombo, Ceylon for an 1801 event. At that time that was the name of the place. To substitute "Colombo, Western Sri Lanka District 1955 - Present" or the other option without a time period, but with the modern place name is historically incorrect, as that name was not in use until well after independence. (Kingdom of Kandy 1469 -1815 / [British] Crown Colony 1802 - Dominion of Ceylon 4 Feb 1948 - Republic of Sri Lanka 22 May 1972 - Present [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kandy and https://archive.org/details/scott2018standar0001unse/page/n51/mode/2up?q=ceylon])

Why is there not the option for a place just as there is in the United States for example "New Haven, Connecticut Colony, British Colonial America" for events prior to 1776 and "New Haven, Connecticut, United States" for events after independence?

I realize that it will take time and research to formulate the options, and I would have been happy to generate a place name with the assistance of Wikipedia (or a stamp catalog) and a standard format (but might have gotten in wrong without an hour of research first).

I can see how there could also be an argument to use the language of the place for the place name. That does not bother me as I know enough of history (for example Poland's ever changing domination by their neighbors which makes the origins immigrants reported to the US Census changing from 1900 to 1950) to be able to find the information I seek. I however would not be able to use non-Latin alphabet place names.

Again time required, but as an assist, the English name could be added in parentheses following. As genealogy interests expand world-wide, English seems a fairly common second language.

There already seems to be a foreign user language preference, as I have seen United States' persons and records attached to the Tree by an apparent French user, as the records had French place names for US Places (États-Unis)!

And to add to even the current complexity. While a formal political change may have occurred, say New York County to City in 1898, that does not mean that the record keeping authorities made an immediate change. This has consequences in search strategies as I am not aware of how tolerant the search process is for a date such as 1898, and the difference in searching Manhattan, versus New York City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan 19th century, last paragraph). Clearly the genealogist needs to know their local history and be adaptable, and should not expect FamilySearch to make the search process too easy. After all part of the fun is the hunt!

Gordon Collett

When you say you were prompted to update the standard, what do you mean? The only time there is a message against a place name is when there is no standard linked to the place name at all.

Do not forget that the user-entered place name does not have to be the same as linked standard. It can be correct even when the linked standard is not and you are waiting to have the place edited.

Here I have entered the correct place name:

There are no warnings, no data errors, no prompts to update anything. This is correctly entered.

If you click on the data to open the Data View pop up, you can see that is is correctly linked to the less correct standard which is the best one available and will put map pins in the correct location on the map. It also allows correct functioning of all Family Tree program routines.

One day when the Places database has the right place names, you can go back and change the linked standard.

Looking at this reference from FamilySearch: https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/fs-places-familysearch-places-country-specific-guidelines under Sri Lanka, they do apparently intend, one day, to have every place properly under Ceylon as seen in the following extract.

To quote:

Sri Lanka

Anticipated hierarchical structure (general to specific):

• Provinces L1 (9)
• Districts L2 (25)
• Divisional Secretary's Divisions L3 (331)
• Grama Niladhari Divisions L4 (14,022)

Anticipated place types and what to do with them:

Divisional Secretary's Divisions will be referred to as type County, as that was the former name of that type. Grama Niladhari Divisions will be referred to as Villages by the same logic. Both of these types should be represented in the Additional Type Information section.

Historical treatment in FamilySearch Places:

• Prior to 1972: Ceylon (a British colony)
• 1972 to Present: Sri Lanka (Independent country)

Language (anticipated default language(s), other significant display languages):

The three languages most vital to Sri Lanka are (in order) Sinhala, Tamil and English. There may be call for occasional names in Malay. These languages represent the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Austronesian families which subsume the grand majority of local dialects, so those local dialects are not likely to be present outside of a very small number of villages.

(End of quote)

Looking in the database, I don't seen any places currently under Ceylon but it is a very long term project to get the Places database even close to comprehensive.

PABulfinch

Here is the Knowledge Article that gives the directions on how to suggest a standardized place.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-request-a-new-place-in-the-database-of-standardized-places.

Paul W

I was shocked to find you are correct in there apparently being no "Colombo, Ceylon" in the FamilySearch place names database. Although you can possibly get the name (in this format) added, it seems unbelievable - considering the obscure villages that are included in the database, in various forms subject to the time period in question - that (this) Colombo is only included with a choice of "Colombo, Western, Sri Lanka" or "Colombo, Colombo, Western, Sri Lanka". Has a "Colombo, Ceylon" ever been included in the database, I wonder and - if so - why did someone in the "Place Names team" decide to remove it?

FLQR

As I nor recall, when I had logged in I was asked to volunteer to review some records.

When I then was prompted to update the standard place name, I was presented about 10 records that did not have a standard place name, Colombo was the first and seemed to be obvious that there would have been an existing standard. Others later that appeared to be more obscure when there was no obvious place, then I declined to make a decision.

I often see prompt to standardize a marriage location, usually when there is a city with the same name as the county. When I know that the records are a county responsibility then I select the county place.

I understand that this is a long process and given staffing needs prioritization.

I would change you have above to be more correct (My names and dates should be checked of course)

Historical treatment in FamilySearch Places:

*** add *** Kingdom of Kandy 1469 -1815

*** [British] Crown Colony 1802 - 4 Feb 1948 -

*** Dominion of Ceylon 4 Feb 1948 - 1972

/// remove ///   Prior to 1972: Ceylon (a British colony)

   1972 to Present: Sri Lanka (Independent country) or Republic of Sri Lanka 22 May 1972 - Present

BJC1234

I think we need and option to put two place names.

I would find it helpful if I could enter the proper place name for the event as the time it happened.

AND for the current name of the same location. (it can get confusing, and could look like the ancestor is moving about, when really hasn't moved at all.

Eg (not being entirely accurate here, but just trying to explain)

1838 Meyers corners, Innsifil Twp, Home District, Lower Canada (now called Stroud, Innisfil Twp, Simcoe Co., Ontario, Canada

1841 Victoria, Innisfil Twp, Home District, Lower Canada (now called Stroud, Innisfil Twp, Simcoe Co., Ontario, Canada

1851 Victoria, Innisfil Twp, Simcoe Co., Canada West (now called Stroud, Innisfil Twp, Simcoe Co., Ontario, Canada

1901 Stroud, Innisfil Twp, Simcoe Co., Ontario, Canada (now called Stroud, Innisfil Twp, Simcoe Co., Ontario, Canada

This would be ever so helpful when doing French genealogy. The old New France/Quebec records have the old name of the place, but I would like to quickly find them on a current map. Where in Quebec or France.

Visually overwhelming, but their could be a button to click, to see "current name of location"

I suspect the need for standardized locations is to pin point it on a map sometime in the future, I look forward to this.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@BJC1234, given that place conclusions already have two values (the display and the background, the latter called "standardized" in FS parlance), I think adding the current name would rather overload the field. I generally record current names in one of two places: the reason box or a research note. Oh, and sometimes the Notes/Description field for a source, but that's rare, because I'm usually concentrating on other things when I'm editing those. But truth be told, I mostly don't bother: I know that all of the places that are now in Burgenland or Slovakia or Serbia had different names when my relatives lived there than they do now, and I also know where the gazetteers are where I can look up the changes.

Re: your last sentence, the use of standardized locations to determine map pin placement is current, not future. Check the Time Line tab of any profile, for example.