One person in my research was born in a village (let’s call it ABC) and that village is in a municipality (also called ABC). In 1941, the municipality was dissolved and the village (absorbed by a large city called XYZ) became a district of that city. After entering all this information, I now have three records called ABC: ABC the village and its municipality, and ABC a district in the city of XYZ, which has its own municipality.
I now have to remember to choose ABC the village for before 1941 and ABC the neighbourhood for after 1941.
Is there a better way to solve this? so I don’t need to remember all those villages. It is quite common for villages around large cities to be dissolved and become a district of the city. Because ABC (village or neighbourhood) is the start/top/first choice, I cannot filter down with date filters here.
I thought I might use a location record ‘DO NOT USE’ and use a date filter. ABC after 1941 surrounded by ‘DO NOT USE’. But am not sattisfied, since ‘DO NOT USE’ isn’t a location.
Hi
I personally keep the village name, and then use the Alternative Names
function for whatever it subsequently becomes.
Being based in the UK ad using the Historic Counties (with geographical
boundaries like rivers or hills) as the base line ignoring all later
administrative rearrangements.
I would only use Urban District or locality if it had always been in a
City or Town
phil
Yes, I understand, keeping it simple.
Our country (NL) has had major revisions in naming and grouping municipalities and even municipalities taken over by different provinces. For every change new archive locations are being used. Meaning a birth in 1940 for this village would be found in a different archive (or archive-location) than the ones after 1941. The locations follow the province changes and / or name changes of the municipalities. It makes keeping track very complicated. Keeping all name - municipality - province changes means I can at least track down where to find my sources.
The Village and the District/Neighborhood are the same place so only one record. What you put for the place Type (Village, District, Neighborhood) is your preference.
The ABC Village was enclosed by the ABC municipality before 1941 and enclosed the XYZ city after 1941. And the XYZ City can have its own enclosed by path.
The ABC village seized to be and the ABC municipality became a suburb. Even if geographically they were the same location.
I don’t understand how that is solved with your example. Probably am overcomplicating things.
ABC village is enclosed by ABC municipality, probably after a date, and before then was enclosed by the province. After 1941 it ceases to be and no more events get added to the record.
ABC municipality is enclosed by the province before 1941 and by the XYZ City after 1941 becoming a district/neighborhood of the city.
My interpretation
Places ie villages or churches can have a location ie Lat:Lon and may
increase or decrease in size or cease to exist however the Lat:Lon are
still there.
Administrative Places like Registration Districts for Birth Marriages
and Death are the creation of Bureaucrats and I do not ascribe Lat:Lon
to them.
To find sources you are better off assigning repositories which can have
a Lat:Lon although digital sources provide another challenge.
phil
After some more thinking on the issue, I would use the Village record as the record used in events and detailed in the diagram.
If you have a relative born in ABC in 1880, 1930 and another in 1950, would you understand them all to be born in ABC? For me, that is the populated place and as @comeng points out, the place with the consistent latitude, longitude to locate on a map.
Also, if you use dates within the place record, and you choose the wrong entry based on the dates encoded, ??? is shown in the place field, which flags you that you picked an invalid entry.
Question marks (?) only appear when using alternative names to change the name of the place for different time periods. The ? Indicates there is no valid name for the event date. In the enclosed by hierarchy path, if there is no option for the event date the hierarchy stops on that record.
I use the way I do for 2 reasons I find it the simplest to remember and
avoid duplication and also because I like to get Lat:Lon involved in
order to generate heat maps which I find fascinating in understanding
migrations.
But you need to find something you are comfortable with all ways are
correct just different.
phil
I tried the alternative name with date. Put a - (minus sign) as alternative name. Date after 1 jan 1941. It leaves the placename completely empty, doesn’t show question mark. But this does indicate to me I choose the ABC (village name) being invalid, instead of ABC the neighbourhood. A slightly more visual que would be nice though.
The main place Name entry also needs date paremeters. In this case before 1941. At the end of the Name field there an edit icon that will open the window to enter the information, the same as adding/editing an Alternative name.
Based upon the date of the event, this main entry is evaluated first. With no date paremeter, it returns as a valid option.
Similar things in Belgium. I have been thinking if and how to tackle these changes. And I decide to just ignore these completely. As long as a name keeps pointing to a geographical location, that’s enough IMHO. I don’t know of any example where the name of a place has been moved to a completely other location.
I agree however that a location might need more the just a name to be uniquely identified. There are plenty of names that are duplicated inside and between countries. Like Sedan in France and in Australia. That why I tend to enter provinces e.a. in countries and put places underneath. And yes, places can move from one province to another due to readjusting of theit borders. But that can be usefull info to some extent to have that recorded. When this occurred, is that important??? To me right now, no. But that I do not consider as the eternal truth.
Be sure to add date prefixes (between, before, after) otherwise your dates probably wont work as expected.
I’m working through a similar process for my place objects in Quebec, the time period spans 1680-present and the area changed from French (Gouvernements, Siegneuries, etc) to British (Districts, Counties), to Canada (Region, Counties). Its a work in progress but here is the strategy I am planning to use:
Always create the smallest place object and give it alt names.
Example: County A splits into A1 and A2 after 1970.
Dont create a place object for A, instead create A1 and A2 and give them an alt name of A before 1970.
[edit] I’ve found a flaw in this alt-name system which is that when adding a place to an event you wont be able to see the alt names. So if you have a record that takes place in a historical county that you know you have previously added to your hierarchy it can be difficult to find when the name that shows up is different than what you searched.
I definitely choose to create A, and A1 and A2 as parts of the A. I explain why I did this while registering newly found familiy members in the USA. That country is a maze of counties and townships and what more. I encounter more than once that the birthplace of a person is recorded as “County XXX” and another one as “Township YYY”. Looking at Google maps I see then that YYY is part of XXX, so where exactly that first person is born, is mine and your guess, and I can only record the county.
