Question

abbreviate states

Comments

The usual form of communication on G2G is a brief heading followed by more detail of the question you want to ask in the text box under the heading. This will be more likely to get you some helpful responses that just a couple of words without explanation or context.

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Thanks.I actually intended to do a search. You know, like you're supposed to do before asking a question. ;-)

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We do see that now and then Mark, where folks get caught out by hitting the wrong button when they think they are searching. You are not the first person to have posted before writing their question 

Answer 1

Welcome to G2G!  And people call me terse.

We spell them out because non-USA people don't always know our abbreviations.

Comments

Thanks for the star, Mark!

Abbreviation story:  I was in FamilySearch researching some 19th century Oklahoma people, and ran across several born in Italy.  The images showed 'IT.'  Indian Territory. 

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Herbert, I spell them out because, like my ancestors who just couldn’t avoid a good war if there was one to be had, I didn’t like being told by the post office that the state abbreviations I learned in elementary school (1966) weren’t good enough anymore.

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Pip, the Postal Service instituted the current state abbreviations in 1963.

What were they teaching you in 1966?

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We were still resisting the government in the rural South in 1966.

N. C.

Tenn.

Va.

Pa.

Etc!

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As a 21 year old, I'm not supposed to know about this stuff, so I hope I'm not admitting to more years than I'm willing to, but ...

when I grew up in NYC (that's New York City), Pennsylvania wasn't Pa - it was Penn.

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And then there are those of us who live on the other side of the Atlantic. We  were never taught your abbreviations, so we first have to figure out whether you are referring to a state or something else, then have to look up to see what the abbreviation means. I have learned a few of them now, but certainly don’t know all of them.

Answer 2

We should always try to have full non abbreviated locations. There are only two abbreviations that are officially approved for use in Wikitree and they are UK for the United Kingdom and USA for United States of America.

Any other abbreviations can be easily misunderstood. For instance there have been at least two variation for Pennsylvania provided in this thread alone.

Also when abbreviating it does provide opportunity for places to be mistaken for false locations for the profiles. See Herbert Tardy's Italy/Indian Territory example.