Place Standards: For Dutch Towns/Cities after 1812 make the standardization be in the format of Town

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: This would be a big project and would require some research into place names in the Netherlands.

Before ~1812 places should be standardized generally by town/parish, province, country.
After ~1812 places should be generally standardized by village/town/city, municipality, province, country. (Municipalities officially started in 1812 but sorta started from as early as 1795.)

Right now there is a mix of both of these standards which can be confusing. Some place names are getting updated already which is good.
For example, there is a village called Driel in the Netherlands. It is standardized as Driel, Overbetuwe, Gelderland, Netherlands following the village, municipality, province, country format.
There is another place (in a different part of Gelderland) called Driel, Gelderland, Netheralnds, which refers to the municipality that ended in 1944 (it is now called Maasdriel, Gelderland, Netherlands)

The Muncipality of Overbetuwe started on Jan 1, 2001. So now we need to put in Driel, Heteren, Gelderland, Netherlands that refers to the same place as Driel, Overbetuwe, Gelderland, Netherlands for ~1812 to Jan 1, 2001.

What I am saying is that all the other places in the Netherlands need to be included which will have the dates that the town was in that municipality.

Also for places that the municipality is known by the biggest town that it would still have the city, municipality, province, country format. For example: Apeldoorn, Apeldoorn, Gelderland, Netherlands would be for the city of Apeldoorn after about 1812 (when using civil records instead of church records) instead of Apeldoorn, Gelderland, Netherlands for the town (which format looks the same as the municipality and is ok as they refer to the same place, but this is standards we are talking about.)

Maybe it isn't the best to say this here as I do not know who exactly is over the standard place names and where they actually came from originally but this is my idea to make things more standardized in the Netherlands.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: I certainly agree that standardisation is required, but the biggest problem with including municipalities is that they have changed often, particularly in the last few decades. The Napoleonic regime created around 1200 gemeenten, but now only about 350 remain.

It can be also be quite difficult to get accurate and precise information about the boundaries of municipalities. Recently I was trying to get a map of the municipalities in a certain 19th century year to present census data graphically, but was unable to find this easily.

If we consider the village of Genne, in Overijssel, lying between Hasselt and Zwolle. Up 1967, it is easy to find that this was in Zwollerkerspel.
But if you rely on https://dans.knaw.nl/nl/over/organisa... you would think it was now in gem. Zwolle. Actually it went to Hasselt, which in 2001 was absorbed into Zwartewaterland.

FS would need to create three standardised place names for Genne in the post-1812 period if the municipality was to be included.

In conclusion this would be quite a big task for FS, a volunteer-driven and non-profit organisation, to undertake.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Yes, a huge task but if you look through the Places database you will find examples where the pace names with changing jurisdictions during various time periods are slowly being added in. I'm sure it will take them many years to finish this task but it is in progress.

Here is one example:



Jordi, if there is a specific locality you where you need to get the place names improved, adding municipalities and time periods, you might try requesting this at the FamilySearch Places group at:
https://community.familysearch.org/s/...

and see if someone could start working on the area you need.

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: Oo I will definitely check that link out!

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: True a big task. Maybe I will work on asking for Gelderland places specifically since most of my research is there. And through time more an more places will be more standard. Thank you for the link, it looks interesting. I am reading it right now.