Standardized Places for Greece

CurtisRobertAndrew1

Family Search Community Trees has an existing project, and is starting a new one, which require standardized place names for Greece (~1800 to present). Per the Greece Wiki, "The first administrative division of Greece took place on 3 April 1833. The land was divided in ten nomos [county], which were divided in 42 eparhia [district], and those in turn were divided into several dimos [municipality]. Subsequently the administrative structure of Greece went through many changes during the years. The most extensive changes took place in 1912, and 1999."

The latest changes went into effect January 1, 2011. The major administrative subdivisions of modern Greece are: (highest to lowest) Region [Perifereia - Περιφέρεια], county or prefecture [Nomos - Νομός], the district or province [Eparchia - Επαρχία], and the municipality [Dimos - Δήμος]. A community is known as koinotis."

While working in Family Search Family Tree, it becomes apparent that these place names are not options. This raises a few questions:

1- Is there a group that maintains a database of standardized names for Greece for FamilySearch, including changes in names per the above?

2- What is the process for adding standardized names.

3- Should the names be entered in Greek or English or both? Using Greek or Roman alphabet or both?

4- If additional detail to a location is entered in the location field, such as village, province, prefecture, region, country, but the Standardized place name only includes the prefecture, region and country, does the FamilySearch searching algorithm only search on the standardized name? or will it also search the village and province entered?

Thank you ... Bob

Teeples Jeanine Cardon1

Impressive questions! Let's see if I can get you answers.

1 - We have no one yet to maintain our database of standardized names for Greece.

2 - Obtain permission to edit FamilySearch Places. There is also a new feature that allows adding a place to the database, and submit it for vetting.

3 - All names are best, in all essential languages, so that is someone's computer is set to Greek, they'll see the display name in Greek, and if it's set to English, they'll see it display in English. Each will take the user to the same place description in their preferred language and script.

4 - The database has a separate field for place-name and place-type. Typing in the place-name brings up all the entries that have that name, and it will reveal the place types so a user can choose which record they want to see.

From the information you offered, it appears you are anxious to help FamilySearch Places improve their database for Greece. If you would like to volunteer, let me know and I'll get you contact information.

Thank you!🙂 Jeanine (FamilySearch Places Authorities Team member)

CurtisRobertAndrew1

Thank you for your response. Please provide the contact information to volunteer to help on standardized place names for Greece. I will also post this information on the Greek Community to see if there is interest and expertise among those members.

Thanks, Bob Curtis (Andreas Kourinakis)