# How to record shared place history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Tags:** places, place-history\ **Created:** [May 1, 2026, 9:08am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428 "2026-05-01T09:08:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pgerlier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/41988e/32.png) [@pgerlier](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/pgerlier)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 9:08am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/1 "2026-05-01T09:08:07Z")
(Gramps 6.0.8 under Fedora 44) I am presently working on a troubled period of History during which frontiers between fighting states varied a lot. I am collecting data on villages which were unwilling participants in these conflicts. When I find persons related to my tree, I also enter the villages mentioned in the events into the Place collection. The annoyance is to re-write again and again the same history in the `Enclosed By` tab with the risk of typing errors. This is caused by the _Date_ field which is unique to the occurrence while the “enclosing” place is shared. Is there a way (or a trick) to duplicate instantly a full dependency history for neighbouring villages? ---
**Author:** ![DaveSch](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/davesch/32/40_2.png) [@DaveSch](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/DaveSch)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 9:56am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/2 "2026-05-01T09:56:51Z")
When you have the place hierarchy in one village’s Enclosed by tab set up with correct dates, you can drag-n-drop the enclosed by records to the clipboard. These will be the place references with the dates and can be copied into other village records. ---
**Author:** ![pgerlier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/41988e/32.png) [@pgerlier](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/pgerlier)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/3 "2026-05-01T15:53:06Z")
Thanks for the tip (I had forgotten it while writing my question). But I can’t select the whole list. I must drag-n-drop each entry individually and care to drop them in the correct order (no swapping). Is there a trick for a single operation on the whole list? On some villages, the list may be more than 10 items long. ---
**Author:** ![DaveSch](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/davesch/32/40_2.png) [@DaveSch](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/DaveSch)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 4:02pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/4 "2026-05-01T16:02:39Z")
Not that I am aware of. One record at a time. ---
**Author:** ![StoltHD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/db5fbb/32.png) [@StoltHD](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/StoltHD)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2026, 9:50pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/5 "2026-05-01T21:50:57Z")
You can create your whole place list in a CSV file and import it, by using “[” “]” around the ID, the information will be updated, not overwritten for any places you have in your database with that ID, so it is important that you use correct ID or build it either from scratch for a new database or fram an csv export with the places you already have… I made a 800k place list that way, even if I only managed to import approx. 86K before Gramps crashed… There is only one risk here that I am not sure about, this was a fix/hack in Gramps CSV import that I do not know if actually ever has been implemented into Gramps. * * * 2026-05-02: Edited the square brackets ---
**Author:** ![pgerlier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/41988e/32.png) [@pgerlier](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/pgerlier)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 8:05am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/6 "2026-05-02T08:05:03Z")
> [@StoltHD](#): > > by using ? around the ID The “?” replaces what looks like an empty square (which is not quoted). Can you tell what it stands for? ---
**Author:** ![csam](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/csam/32/5361_2.png) [@csam](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/csam)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2026, 8:42am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/7 "2026-05-02T08:42:29Z")
> [@pgerlier](#): > > Can you tell what it stands for? If you write a ‘[’ and ‘]’ without space between, discourse displays `[]` as a quadrant ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/1X/2ac1e712b7adf612e31ca08a55419f4cf37c0158.png) [@system](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2026, 8:42am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/how-to-record-shared-place-history/9428/8 "2026-06-01T08:42:38Z")
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