FamilySearch Places: Principles & Guidelines

When to create a historical period:

Guideline: Unique place representations (historical periods) for the same place set are created:

1. To show a change in parent jurisdiction, such as towns in Moravia having a historical period in Austria and in Czechoslovakia.
   
   1. Exception 1: Changes in parent jurisdiction that lasted fewer than five years may be combined with another historical period to prevent duplication with little meaning. Related Places may be used to show the additional jurisdiction.
   2. Exception 2: Localities that were colonies under rule by another country will not be considered children of that country. That relationship will be represented via Related Places, and therefore, a separate historical period is not needed.
2. As needed, to show a change in official name. Less significant name changes should be represented with alternate names only and not with distinct historical periods.
   
   1. Exception 1: If alternate names are confusing enough to disrupt searchability, adding a historical period with a new display name can help.
      
      1. Example: Arlington County, Virginia, was formerly called Alexandria County. However, the independent city of Alexandria is also at the county level, meaning searches for “Alexandria, Virginia” would bring up the incorrect entity first. Adding a new historic period to Arlington County called Alexandria County alleviates this problem.
   2. Exception 2: If the alternate name existed  for a significant length of time (more than 40 years), and the existing place rep is not an administrative place, a new historical period may be added to reflect the name change.
   3. Exception 3: If the name change was requested by an industry partner, such as an archive, it should be added.

If users prefer to show a name or jurisdiction other than the one listed in the standard in Family Tree, they should choose the applicable standard, then change the text to show the preferred name.
New historical periods should not be created for a change in place type unless the rep's parent also changed. The rep's place type at the end of that historical period should be the one represented. Notes about this can be added as Additional Type Information in Notes.

Generally, a place set will only have one place description for any given time. Overlaps in place dates or gaps (periods of time between valid places that are not covered by another place) represent opportunities to improve data.

Administrative places:

Guideline: Rule of diminishing returns with increasing distance from people. For higher-level jurisdictions such as countries, states, and provinces, we choose to be less interested in changes that might otherwise be a reason to create a unique place. It is more useful to tell the story of changing boundaries, etc. at the town or village level.

Explanation: Starting with the district/county level and moving down to smaller/lower level places, small details and place changes become more interesting and more helpful to researchers. In contrast, when large administrative divisions (e.g. states, provinces, countries) are described with several distinct time periods based on trivial differences, the resulting data becomes cumbersome and difficult to use.

Example: Australia and its states have single place descriptions, even though Australia has only been an independent nation (not a British colony) since 1901. Australia was known as "Australia" long before 1901. By describing a single place rep for all of Australia’s known history), we avoid the needless duplication of tens of thousands of places where little descriptive value would be added.

Purpose of place types:

Guideline: Place types are used to categorize places. They should make it possible to easily recognize places of the same general type, regardless of minor linguistic and cultural differences. We seek to strike a balance between granular type descriptions and overly generic classifications.

Explanation: Effectively describing place types for all places makes it much easier to recognize potential duplicate entries, to filter searches and have confidence in their results, and to recognize gaps in the data.

Municipalities:

Guideline: In cases where a municipality has the same name as a settlement (a village, town, or city), there are two possible models to follow. The country-specific guidelines should clarify how to address municipalities in that country.

1. In many areas, a municipality (or Gemeinde (de), obec (cs), commune (fr), etc.) is seen as a special type of town/village that has local government authority over a designated surrounding area. That town or village does not need to be duplicated (i.e. a village under a municipality of the same name). The municipality can then act as a parent place for nearby smaller settlements (e.g. multiple frazioni under one comune in Italy).
2. In countries where municipalities are quite large (15 or more subordinate settlements), such as in Mexico (municipio), Nigeria (local government area or LGA), and Croatia (općina), the municipality and the primary settlement with the same name should both be represented, with the municipality serving as a parent for the primary settlement and the subordinate settlements.

Exceptions: In some areas (England and Czechia, for example), the place type Town is considered a special type of municipality, with certain municipalities being granted “Town” status. In these cases, we will use the place type Town and treat it as we do the neighboring municipalities.

Cemeteries, places of worship, schools, etc:

Guideline: Cemeteries, places of worship, schools, and other spot locations should be described under the city/town/village in which they are located.

Explanation: These locations are predominantly searched for by the relationship to their parent jurisdiction.

Exceptions: Some cemeteries in rural areas exist well beyond the boundaries of any town. For these the best parent would be either the next available level of jurisdiction (e.g. a county in the U.S.) or the local government authority (municipality, township, district, precinct, etc.) that administers the area in question.

Note on historical periods: Our priority for spot features such as these is to have the modern historical period represented. Editors may choose to add more historical periods, but this is lower priority.

Ecclesiastic parishes:

Guideline: Ecclesiastic parishes (units of a religious denomination) will be described under the appropriate political jurisdiction (town, village, county) in which they are located, like church buildings. Related places may be used to describe relationships to ecclesiastic hierarchies (e.g. diocese).

Explanation: Religious jurisdictional units tend to have their own hierarchies. However, because of the way records are traditionally described, we find it more helpful to place Catholic or Lutheran parishes within towns, cities and counties to aid recognition. The use of related places enables researchers and software systems to understand and recognize an ecclesiastical parish that is described in either an ecclesiastical or political hierarchy.

Low priority places:

Guideline: Places like hospitals and crematoriums may be added at patron request, but are not a priority for editors.

Explanation: Most patrons choose to use city, town, or village as the standardized death place, and many countries (especially those with high cremation rates) have other places used for burial. In these cases, using a more general standard is also more likely to connect a person to additional records.

Display names should be official names:

Guideline: By definition, the display name should be the official or standard name of a place.

Explanation: Display names should be selected from the Full or Short names for a given locale. If it becomes necessary to make another name from the list of Alternate Names into a display name, its name type should be changed to either Full Name or Short Name.

Display names in multiple languages:

Guideline: In most cases, standard names in a different language will be added as display names for their respective language. In situations where it is not clear that the different language variant is commonly used, it should be added as an alternate name only and not included as a display name.

Explanation: Many localities have multiple standard names for multiple languages. This is particularly common for larger cities and country names, as well as in regions near borders and in areas that were historically controlled by a ruling power that used a different language.

Identical display names in multiple languages:

Guideline: In cases where a foreign language variant of a place name is identical to the equivalent name in the place's native language, there is no need to create a separate foreign language variant.

Explanation: Many foreign language place names are identical to the native spelling. This becomes increasingly prevalent with the decreasing significance (population, distance from foreign language borders, etc.) of a city/town/village. Different writing scripts (i.e. Cyrillic) would never be "exactly the same" and would be cause to create a unique foreign language variant. However, such work should only be done where a case can be made for the relevance of adding the foreign language names in question.

Exception: Where certain names that are different from the native language are shared by more than one foreign language, it is best to include them as display names for every language that uses that spelling. This will ensure that patrons see the display in their computer's language. For example, Prague has display names of Prague (English and French), Prag (German), Praga (Italian and Spanish) and Praha (Czech). If Prague is entered as a display name only for English and not for French, French speakers would see Praha (Czech - the native language, which is in the same script) and not Prague.

Place types in display names:

Guideline: For higher levels of jurisdiction or administrative units, full names of places often include a place's type and more description (e.g. Davis County, Commonwealth of Virginia, City of Chicago), while Short names represent the place as it is normally called (Davis, Virginia, Chicago). Display names should not include the place type unless it is commonly used to refer to the place.

Explanation: Display names should describe a place the way people would normally refer to it. Most cultures do not normally include a designation of type (city, county, municipality, island, etc.) when referring to a place.

Exceptions: Some cities do, in fact, include the word "city" in their normal name; for example, Salt Lake City and New York City, but not St. Louis City or Las Vegas City. At present, many townships in the US include the designation "township" in their display name. Display names of cemeteries, churches, schools and hospitals generally include type designators. In addition, certain cultures (i.e. Irish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese) commonly include type designators when referring to places. These should be detailed in country-specific guidelines for editors.

Using citations:

Guideline: Citations will be added to describe the source of information associated with places.

Explanation: We desire accurate and authoritative data. Citations give researchers places to look to verify various elements of the data. Without having at least one citation, a place cannot be "accepted" or "certified."

Information included in citations:

Guideline: Citations will be categorized by the type of source (online vs. printed material). The Reference field should enable others to view the cited information; for an online source it will be the URL of the Internet page from which information was obtained. For a printed source, the Reference field should include a bibliographic-style reference. The Description field is used to provide a brief overview of key information gleaned from the specified source.

Explanation: The primary purposes of citations are to demonstrate the authoritative nature of FamilySearch Places data and to provide place editors with a trail to follow if they wish to understand and/or further our shared understanding of a given place.

Removing inaccurate citations:

Guideline: If data concerning a place is updated to a new value (i.e. new coordinates, new type, new parent jurisdiction), any citations referencing the outdated information should be removed/deleted from the place.

Explanation: Citations are meant to validate the information currently stored with a place. If any data elements change, any corresponding citations that do not provide additional value should be removed and replaced with new citations.

Using research links:

Guideline: Research Links can be added to places, as they are available, in order to easily point users to additional information regarding the place in question and its history.

Explanation: Research links are intended to quickly give access to additional information to any and all users of FamilySearch Places. In contrast, citations are focused more on informing place editors who may wish to improve the core data about a place.

Wikipedia research links:

Guideline: Wikipedia Links are a special class of research link. Only one Wikipedia Link (per unique language) should be added to any place.

Explanation: Wikipedia Links are used as a means of filling in the Basic Information section for places described in FamilySearch Places. This means that Wikipedia Links should only be used to connect with articles whose primary subject is the place, as described in FamilySearch Places. Links to additional Wikipedia articles (e.g. significant events that shaped a place’s history) can be added as Links to a Website.

Number of research links and citations:

Guideline: Places should have 1-3 quality research links and citations.

Explanation: Too many research links and citations can be distracting to users. It is better to pick the best few research links and citations so users are directed to the highest quality resources.

Please note the following general guidelines about certified places: 

•  A place’s parent jurisdiction must already be Certified before its status may be updated to Certified.
• Once a place is Certified, its core data is locked to further editing and must be un-certified to edit this data.
• Certification should not be used to indicate that an editor or team of editors has completed editing and reviewing a place. Rather it is intended as a measure to convey the completeness and quality of the place’s description.
• As a general guideline, most countries should only have higher level administrative places certified. These are usually at the ADM 1 and ADM 2 levels and help to create a consistent scaffolding around which other places are described. Some countries may also need to have places certified at lower levels depending on the administrative levels in use there and the need for their consistency.
• Most lower-level places, such as cities, towns, villages, etc., should have a certification status of “Accepted.” Changes that require edits to the place description occur more frequently at this level. Leaving these places as “Accepted” provides the freedom to make adjustments as often as needed. Occasionally, though, the Authorities Team will certify some of these lower-level places if it appears that the descriptions are complete and the team wishes to avoid unnecessary editing.

For a place to be described well in FamilySearch Places – and for it to be Certified – it should have:

• Accurate geographic location
  
  • Latitude and longitude in decimal degrees.
• Best available place type
  
  • The list of available place types may not include the level of detail necessary for a certain place. In such a case, add “Additional Type Information” to specify a place’s type more clearly.

• List of alternate names
  
  • The list of names should include necessary local and regional languages.
• Research links
  
  • Links should include both Wikipedia and/or official websites as available.
  • We do not need exhaustive lists here; links to one or two focused websites are plenty.
• Citations
  
  • These may be added to show where information can be validated.
  • We do not need exhaustive lists of citations; a few focused references would be ideal.
  • Please use the Description field to briefly state critical information that came from a source. For example, “Lehi was settled in 1850 and incorporated as a city in 1852.”
  • Links to Google Maps or other online maps might not need anything in the Description field if the link makes it obvious the website that it will go to and nothing substantive can be added.
• Beginning and ending years
  
  • These should be added as available and appropriate.
  • Beginning and ending years should be checked against the years of a place’s parent jurisdiction to ensure they fit within them.
• A clean, simple look as evidenced by the following:
  
  • Well curated citations
    
    • There should not be any identical or nearly identical citations.
    • Additionally, except for a few limited cases, citations should have a description field that is filled out.
  • Well curated names list
    
    • Names should exist for all languages relevant to the place for that historical period. For example, German colonies located in what is now Ukraine should include German names for the colony for that historical period.
    • There should not be any ODM Variant names. Any existing ODM Variant names should be evaluated for usefulness and, if useful, have their name type should be changed to Variant, Abbreviation, or Misspelling, or deleted.
  • List of Related Places, as applicable
    
    • Related Places can be useful to indicate other, non-vertical relationships that exist or need to be described in addition to those within the place description.
    • These could include the places that were combined to make the current one, or a religious hierarchy or relationship.

Start Years

Settlements

• If there is a clear date when permanent residents began living in the place, such as a founding date, date surveyed, date early buildings were built, etc., that date should be used as the start year.
• An unknown start year should be used for any settlement where people lived consistently (either permanently or on a consistent cycle, such as seasonally) before the history of that area was recorded.

Administrative Places

• Most administrative places should have start years. Missing start years in this case are an opportunity for data improvement.
  
  • Exception: Administrative places that have been used for hundreds of years, such as island groups in the Pacific, should have unknown start years.

Cemeteries

• The start year for a cemetery should be either its founding date or the earliest known memorial date, whichever is earliest.

End Years

Settlements

• Settlements that still exist should have no end year.
• Settlements that were merged into other settlements should have an end year of the date merged. If the place still was still named and had a strong identity following the merge, it may be appropriate to create a new historical period with the place it merged into as its parent.
• Ghost towns should have the place type appropriate to their size (City, Town, Village, Hamlet) and have an end date. If an approximate end date is used, a note should be added clarifying that the date is approximate.