Help:Conventions/Place names

Quick reference

Linking to Place pages

WeRelate has Place pages that provide information such as latitude/longitude, history, alternate names, etc. WeRelate encourages users to link to these Place pages for events on Person and Family pages. This happens when you select a place name from a dropdown list or enter a place name that exactly matches a Place page title.

Since Place pages have latitude and longitude and other information, this information should not be included on Person and Family pages except where explaining name and jurisdictional changes might be useful for understanding how much (or how little) a person moved around or how source citations support events.

Alternate names and jurisdictions

The place display name can show an alternate name for a place (e.g., New Amsterdam instead of New York City).

For places that moved from one jurisdiction to another, the display name can use the jurisdiction name used in the cited source (e.g., Virginia), the jurisdiction name used in the Place page title (e.g., West Virginia), or the jurisdiction used by other events on the same page (for consistency sake).

Both place name and jurisdiction name can be anachronistic to the event. WeRelate is more interested in knowing where an event took place than what the place was called at the time, because knowing the location can help future researchers tie families together correctly.

Displaying the country/nation name

Regardless of whether or not a display name is used or the reason for a display name, the name displayed should always end in the country/nation name used in the Place page title, even if it is anachronistic. For example, all events in the United States of America should end in United States, even if the event occurred before 1776.

Exception:

• There are a few Place pages that represent regions that are not contained within a single country, or original colonies that don’t line up with current states or provinces. Some of these don’t end in the country name. When using one of these Place pages, there is no need to add a display name.

Why enter data this way?

Standardizing place names:

• makes searching more effective.
• supports the browse feature included on the left hand side of a Person or Family page.
• links to Place pages, which provide future researchers additional information such as alternate jurisdictions and place names.

Including the country/nation name is considerate of other users.

• WeRelate is used by people around the world. While people might know the names of all the states, provinces or counties of their own and neighboring countries, they might not be familiar with those in other parts of the world. When the display name includes the country/nation name, readers can quickly see where an event took place without having to hover over the display name to see the Place page name. This is particularly important on the search screen, where only the display name is available.
• If this convention is not followed, it can become very difficult to know what name to use, as the names applied to kingdoms and colonies changed from time to time, and most people don’t have these dates memorized. Furthermore, if the exact date of an event is unknown, there is a dilemma in deciding which name to use.
• WeRelate considers that the place an event took place is important information for placing people in the correct family and finding other relatives. Focusing on the physical location of an event, rather than the jurisdiction at a specific point in history, is more likely to be helpful when tracing a family over a generation or two.

Related information and tasks

• Date conventions
• Selecting places
• Adding new person pages
• Adding new family pages
• Editing person pages
• Editing family pages