Standardizing Place Names

carol.s.johnson

What does it mean that I haven't standardized someone's birth place?

DeborahCarl

Family Search has decided to standardize the place names. So I have entries that FamilySearch created that say Acerra (red flag - not a standardized place), some transcribed records have Acerra, Caserta, Naples, Italy (red flag - not a standardized place) or Civile Acerra, Naples, Italy (not a standardized place). Over the years I've been using Acerra, Napoli, Campania, Italia (not a standardized place but this is correctly written all in Italian) or Acerra, Naples, Campania, Italy (not a standardized place but this is correctly written all in English).

The winner is Acerra, Napoli, Campania, Itay which is a mix of English and Italian but that is what the volunteer chose and that is what the system expects to see.

ME Doran

Because the records in FamilySearch are compared to each other to prevent duplications and to slect sources that may be helpful in providing information about the people, it helps if everyone uses the same formats for dates and the same names for places. Here are links to a couple of articles that explain how to use the standardization process:

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-enter-dates-and-places-into-family-tree

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-add-or-correct-a-standardized-place-in-family-tree

Rex Gwatkin

I like the idea of Standard Place Names. However some of the suggested place name for New Zealand are way way incorrect i.e they are rubbish. I'm going to start suggesting new Standard Place names for New Zealand, however, that does not get rid of the incorrect (rubbish) names. eg Town, Southland, Southland, New Zealand, How can one go about that?

I realize the difficultly of knowing place names in another country, and would myself not work on place names for any country other than New Zealand.

Regards, Rex

Gordon Collett

The concept of standardized place names in Family Tree is one of the most elegant, wonderful, poorly explained, mis-understood features of Family Tree that nicely solves the long standing conflict between real world history and simpleminded computers. It allows the best entry for place names by researchers while still providing a set latitude and longitude point for computer routines.

I cannot state this strongly enough: We are not restricted in any way in how we enter place names. We can and should enter the most accurate place name we can devise for the time and place we are entering data for. We are not limited to the standardized version. We are only required to link the place name we enter to the closest latitude and longitude available as designated by a text string that looks like a place name but which really just represents that latitude and longitude.

The red flag only means the place name entered has not yet been linked to the latitude and longitude. You do not have to change the place name to do that linking.

To take the example given above from Italy of Acerra, Napoli, Campania, Italia and making up an addition, this place name is correctly entered and correctly standardized when entered as:

No red flag; correctly standardized; works for all FamilySearch routines such as searching, possible duplicates, and hints; and is exactly "what the system expects to see" and what the system is designed for.

My presentation on this topic is a little out of date but still gets the point across in excruciating detail: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jl6M8efrGj6Xe3MP6oyYdfFMXPSPCoJuyrS5xXj7KN8/edit?usp=sharing