Standardized location Issues in nineteenth century Holstein and Schleswig.
I have ancestors who were in what is today Germany, but in the early 1800s that area was divided into the duchy of Holstein (formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire) and duchy of Schleswig (part of Denmark). I do not appear to be able to indicate village, parish, county, etc. without FamilySearch insisting that the Standardized place name is Schleswig-Holstein (an entity that did not exist until 1871). This makes a difference when hunting for records as earlier civil records are in Denmark, not Germany. I have the same problem when attempting to enter ancestors that were born before 1806 in Holstein which was then officially part of the Holy Roman Empire. Is there some way to update these locations?
Answers
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Yes, follow the instructions here:
A recent post also stated this:
There is a current issue with "Suggest a New Place" option in places. Patrons are not getting confirmation of the suggest place. The responsible team is working on this. If you do not get confirmation of the suggested new place, please create an email to PlaceFeedback@familysearch.org requesting the same details you would include when you request a new place. This would be the name, parent location, lat/long, type of place and any sources that can be used as citation. (See: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/595084#Comment_595084 )
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How do you navigate to that FamilySearch Places page from the home page?
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On the home page scroll to the very bottom. There is a menu bar there that starts "About - Volunteer - Blog - …" The next to last item is Site Map. Click on that Site Map link. On the page that comes up look under Genealogy Records. The first item under that is Place Names. Click on Place Names to go to the Places database.
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I would note that you are not asking for a single place to be corrected, but rather for hundreds or thousands of places to be corrected — every single village, parish, town, city, etc. within Schleswig and Holstein to be listed in multiple larger jurisdictions. There are situations where this is done, and other situations where the Places Standards team at FamilySearch does not have the resources to list every place in every jurisdiction.
In an ideal world, your hope would be realized and every place throughout the world would be listed within every jurisdiction it ever existed within, but that would require many millions of new entries to be created within the Places database, each with its associated documented research. That's never going to happen, so compromises have to be made along the way. The most important thing to do is to accurately identify the place. That may be within the jurisdiction at the time of the record or event (this is ideal), or within the current jurisdiction, or some other historical jurisdiction.
Is it really necessary to have every place that was ever in Prussia listed within the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, the Free State of Prussia, and other variations of Prussia, along with Germany and Poland and Russian occupation, and whatever other jurisdictions it may have been in during its history?
I would also note that the FamilySearch Places team has specifically chosen on occasions to combine historical places. One example is when many United States territories were combined into their respective states. My great-grandfather was born in Union, Salt Lake, Utah Territory, United States, but that cannot be selected as a standard — the only correct standard that can be chosen is Union, Salt Lake, Utah, United States. That does accurately identify the place where he was born, even though the state of Utah did not yet exist in 1870. See Why does FamilySearch merge U.S. States and historic territories in Places?
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@Alan E. Brown comments show why the dual entry system that FamilySearch uses in Family Tree for dates and place names is so important and is such a powerful feature. It also points out the importance of understanding how to correctly use place name standardization. This is what allows you to enter the correct historical name and link it to the best available standard even if that standard is not historically correct. For example, you can still enter "Union, Salt Lake, Utah Territory, United States" as the place name and link it to the less specific and less accurate standard of "Union, Salt Lake, Utah, United States."
However, in this particular situation I see that FamilySearch's places team does structure the area you are discussing to show the historical periods you would like to see. For example, Gottrupel is entered as:
- Gottrupel, Flensburg, Slesvig, Denmark for Unknown to 1866
- Gottrupel, Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia, Germany for 1866 to 1946
- Gottrupel, Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein ,Germany for 1946 to today.
(Wikipedia states: But in the Second Schleswig War (1864), Prussia and Austria won and the territory was absorbed into Prussia in 1867. FamilySearch does not include place names that existed for less than five years and sometimes is forced to use approximate dates.)
While it will take decades to complete the millions of new entries needed to complete the Places Database, if there are a handful or so places in Holstein and Schleswig where your ancestors are from, the places authority team is pretty good about fixing places that users need. Go ahead and request your specific places and they should be able to get those improved even if they don't have enough personnel to complete the entire province.
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I was just thinking more about the elegant design of Family Tree and the flexibility it has for entering place names. The programmers have provided a way for us to enter just as much detail as we need or want to use. One way is the ability to enter a full place name and link it to a less complete standard. The other is the listing of variant names in the Places database for the common situations a user may run into. Here is a partial screen shot of the list for Prussia showing just the English variants:
If any of these are used, the correct standard to link to comes up automatically so that we can link directly without needing to first enter the place name then edit the standard:
This design is what allows us to use in FamilyTree "every place that was ever in Prussia listed within the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, the Free State of Prussia, and other variations of Prussia, along with Germany and Poland and Russian occupation, and whatever other jurisdictions it may have been in during its history" (with the exception that jurisdictions under five years long are not included) but have just a single entry for these in the Places database.
This is also what allows users to enter and display Territory of Utah on a profile a page and easily link it to the less specific standard:
or for a user to easily use a different language if that user is entering all their family information in a language other than English:
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