Location Names With 5-digit Numbers
General question about location names. I see people putting these locations in with 5-digit numbers included. What is that all about? I see that and I delete them and put it back to what it was or should be.
Best Answers
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In that case, it's a current German postal code. See:
And should not be applied to someone born around 1761.
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German postal codes were firstly introduced in 1941 and had 2 digits. In 1962 they were enhanced with 4 digits. The 5-digits-system was introduced in 1993.
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I've never encountered such a thing. What part of the world were these places? Could the numbers simply be postal codes?
FS's Places database, being a computer database, does have a number for each entry in it, but those have seven digits, in my experience, and if you use the number when entering a location, the system changes it to the text label.
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Are the locations in the USA? If they are, those could be short-form zip (postal) codes.
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No, a lot of what I see of these are in Europe and ones I did spot in the USA were not zip codes at all because some of the ones I spotted were on some of my connected family members and the town is the same town I live in and it definitely was not a zip code. It's some random 5 digit number that for some odd reason people are putting in. I personally think these are volunteers doing it though because many of them have no real connections to my family.
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Can you check the changelog to see when the numbers were added? That should tell you who/when on the addition of the numbers.
My other thought is Ahnentafel numbers, but 5 digits would indicate a large tree.0 -
The changes were made yesterday on this one. Go look at person ID GDXR-5QZ and look at the locations there for an example of what I'm running into and then tell me why this is? We're going to have to go in and fix some of these now.
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@Áine Ní Donnghaile - yeah but the ones I saw placed on USA towns were not zip codes at all and I know that for a fact due to me having to fix place names of the current town I live in and those surrounding it. I know what those zip codes are. Personally I don't think we should be putting zip codes in there anyways. Now if you want to make a separate and custom entry down below for that then great, no problem.
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As I said above, a current postal code doesn't belong on the record for someone born in the 1760s. I can't speak for the other records where you found a numeric code, since I haven't seen them.
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Well, it's definitely not the FS Places database numbers — the number in "Jugenheim, 64342, Seeheim-Jugenheim, Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt, Hessen, Deutschland" points to the Azores — but the changes are so recent, you could just ask the person who put them in?
Huh: that one is a postal code: 64342 is "Seeheim-Jugenheim, Hessen, Germany".
The best I can think of is to contact the contributor and point out that in 1761, street addresses didn't exist yet, never mind postal codes.
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Well at this point it no longer matters because it looks like someone else went in there and took those numbers all out and changed those entries again. Once again, a person not even connected to the family in any way, but at least those numbers are gone.
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