Sweden - can we find a consensus using EITHER landskap/province OR län/county in the Location fields?

Question

Using parallell systems as described in the headline causes so many problems, both inside WikiTree (for example recognizing matching profiles) and when data is extracted from WikiTree, for example by several apps.

Until now I have strived to use counties (as in Village, Parish, County, Country) in the Location fields for Birth and Death when creating and editing profiles, as I found most references to that system. It also works quite well with Fan Chart, Ancestor Explorer and other apps that maps or groups ancestors from same areas together. But since I found some connections (matched and merged) to ancestors whose profiles are imported from other platforms or created using landskap/province (as in Village, Parish, Province, Country) in the location field, these parts of "my" tree are causing errors, duplicates, parallell legends and a lot of other problems.

I am not strongly for or against any of the systems as such, and I am ofc willing to do the work changing profile information myself, but I am unsure if it is right to do it or even suggest it should be done, as long as we do not have an explicit consensus on what system we should actually use.

So, can we please try to reach a consensus and then stick to ONE system? Or at least recommend one system as a guideline that could be included in the style guides and referred to when there are different opinions?

Comments

I don't know anything about Swedish locations, but in case it helps here is a table showing how many profiles use each of the different locations in Sweden - https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTShowTable/Table.htm?table=Countries&filter=SWE.

If I understand that table correctly, there currently appear to be roughly similar numbers of profiles using province and using county - about 200,000 use county, about 190,000 use province.

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Thank you, Paul. This table will be very helpful for trackning the actual trends and tendencies.

Answer 1

I think that would be hard and not worth it, but that any such forced standardization mostly would have the effect of deterring some people from using Wikitree.

What's important is the parish. "Gällersta parish" is always the same parish, regardless of if you point out that it is in Närke or that it is in Örebro County. When there are several parishes with the same name (and there are!) the best way in Wikitree of seeing that it is indeed the same Swedish parish referred to in two profiles is often that both profiles have the same geographical category, like "Gällersta (T)" in this case.

Referring to counties is very popular with those doing Swedish genealogy from the 1800s and around that, since it was used in the church archives as well. When the books refer to a parish which isn't close, the note will most of the time point out which county it is in.

People doing older genealogy in Sweden often prefer to avoid the counties, since they are so changeable. For example the style guide for writing articles for leading Swedish Genealogical journal "Svensk Genealogisk Tidskrift" says to use the same way of referring to locations as Svenskt Ortnamnslexikon where you use "socken" (parish), "härad" (hundred), and "landskap" (province). For my example that would be Gällersta, Sköllersta härad, Närke.

The given reason is that there have be so many changes about the counties. They give the example of Salem parish (Salem, Svartlösa härad, Södermanland) which at various times has belonged to three different counties.

When there is something really tricky going on with the names you need to be cautious anyway, and I don't think having one standard will make the problem smaller. It might even make it bigger if people aren't allowed to enter the data they have from a good source as is, but need to "translate" it first, with a possibility of introducing errors.

Comments

Thanks Per for a good argument.

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+1  "avoid the counties, since they are so changeable"

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D, where did you get that sentence? This has been discussed already within the Nordic Project.  The changes in counties are per the centuries or years that they changed in and are up to the researcher to find. Here is the page for correct location names.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sweden_Project_-_Correct_Location_Names

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Missy, I got it from the fourth paragraph in Per Starbäcks answer, which I replied to.

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I work mostly in pre-1700 Sweden, but I use Village, Parish, County, Country.

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I moved my comment to an answer to the question instead.

Answer 2

Hej Helena!

Did you know that there is a Nordic project and a Sweden subproject, and the possibility to chat in those groups on Discord?

I was a beginner when I started on WT, but since some years back am consistent in using parish, county, country in Sweden.  

Here's a space page for the Nordic project subprojects

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Nordic_Project_-_Country_Sub-Projects

Comments

Yes, I am aware of the Nordic Project, but as I am not using Discord (mainly due to security reasons) I thought there was no point for me to try to join.

However (and to prevent derailing the subject to Discord pros and cons...) would you as a more experienced user say that there is a general tendency for county instead of province among more experinced users?

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I mainly use House/Street, Village, Parish, County, Country instead of Village, Parish, Province, Country but both have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, some counties have the same name as the city, and it can be hard to know if it refers to the county or the city. It's not uncommon, the same parish name exists in several places in a province (for example the parishes Ljungby, Ryssby, Voxtorp in the province Småland that exist in several counties in Småland). Using härad/hundred will make it easier to know which parish it is, but most people do not know which härad/hundred a parish is in and will either not write it or skip the location completely if it is necessary. I think a future data field for latitude/longitude+exactitude in conjunction with today's location will help to get more accurate locations.

Answer 3

I mostly use Parish, County, Country, but there are so many Swedes in my ancestry, that many have been created or edited by other WTers using other systems, and I’m OK with that, since I usually follow ancestral lines by name anyway.

Answer 4

This has been discussed already within the Nordic Project.  Here is the page for correct location names.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sweden_Project_-_Correct_Location_Names

Answer 5

I fully agree with Per Starbäck. Using counties without "län" are hideos as (example) Jämtland without län is the province and "my" parishies lie in Ångermanland but after 1974 belong to Jämtlands län. I almost vomit when I see counties without "län". The same go with Norrbotten abd Västerbotten. Without "län" they are provinces along the Coast and the big province Lappland belongs either to Norrbottens län in the north or Västerbottens län in the south. Parishes like Åsele, Dorotea, Fredrika belong to province Lappland but county Västerbotten!

So both ways should be o.k. but pls give correct names for counties, So  skip the drop down menu if you do not know the geography of Sweden. Nowadays counties/län also are renamed to Regions and are bigger then the former counties. If drop down menu will be "modernized" it will be even worse.

Comments

I think "hideous" and "vomiting" are totally extreme in describing the use of county/län after a county name. The reason why "we" use län after the county names is so as to not be confused with the counties and the Provinces/Landskaps.

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Hi!

I think you have misunderstood me totally, sorry for my bad English?? I don´t like when "län/county" are MISSING, which I often see, I think it is essential that "län/county" are written after names, because names (like Västerbotten, Norrbotten, Göteborg, Kristianstad) without län/county will be mistaken for a town or province. Actually border of counties have been changed often historically. Sometimes a stray village is moved from one county to another. many times, see Per Starbäck´s example.  Maybe you are not aware of this, but to me it is important that Tåsjö, Fjällsjö, Bodum (for instance) are not supposed to belong to Jämtland province, even if they since 1974 belong to Jämtland county. I have today sorted out profiles in Skåne province where Ängelholm was said to belong to Kristianstad. It took me a while to understand it meant Kristianstad län/county. Nowadays all of Skåne is called Skåne län or even "Region Skåne", earlier there were Kristianstads län and Malmöhus län. The drop down menue is probably the big problem, since all "län/county" are missing there, for example: if you start writing "Ängelholm"you get the suggestion "Ängelholm, Ängelholm, Kristianstad, Sverige" and it is easy to then press "enter"  without län/county.

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Oooooh, I am so sorry, Monika. I totally read it wrong. We are in total agreement. Thank you for correcting me. 

Thank you for finding the importance of using län.

Answer 6

No, we can not find consensus.

Sweden have a somewhat uniqe system of parallell provinces. Due to this, most people do not even know the number of them. I could probably name them all on a blind map, but I don't know their number.

With a confusion like this you understand each person has their own personal preferences.

I use the Landskap, because they have cultural, ethnical  and historical weights the Regions do not have. My own Region was formed in year 2000, the Landskap was named by the Romans. The landskap is more stable over time.

Other people prefere the Regions, since they are the administrative divition system that is actually used by the authorities running the registries. Although these change over time.

But then I think we could just as well use the church super-parishes, the Stift. No one do that.

Answer 7

In my part of the country, people don't identify with the landskap, which means we default to the county. Even when Norrbotten and Västerbotten only split up in 1810.