England Project Video - Locations

Profile manager: Steven Whitfield [send private message]

Target audience – New Members and Trailers (or wider, touching on thornier issues?)

Aim – to explain how and why we input locations in different ways and the importance of accuracy and consistency in what we do

References

1. Wikitree Help on Location Fields
2. England Project Profile Standards - Locations
3. English Place Name Categories

Location fields - Guidelines

1. Births, marriage, deaths are all recorded in a data field - the same guidelines apply
   1. Overriding Wikitree rule = use the place name current at the time
   2. Format = Town, County, Country; or District of a town/city, Town/City, County, England
      1. Follow correct order
      2. Use commas (not spaces [with no comma] or full stops)
      3. Don’t input street, hospital, church where baptised or buried (put them in the biography)
      4. Church is OK in marriage field’ enter it in this order: Church, Town, County, Country (or put in bio)
   3. Pay attention to time periods, especially
      1. United Kingdom never use before 1801, it is optional afterwards
      2. More recently boundary changes Greater London 1965; others post 1974
   4. Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man are not in England

Why use this format?

1. To better match with existing profiles when adding a new profile (better identification of duplicates)
2. Geolocating - incorrect format prevents mapping software from working
3. Correct inputting generates reports for county teams who follow up suggestions, sourcing etc. (Poorly formatted locations can get missed)

Wikitree prompts - drop-down location lists

1. Generally a good starting point with correct punctuation and gives a steer re correct time periods (Note the first option on a drop-down menu is often not the correct one)
2. Using the drop downs helps considerately with consistency, but don't use them if they are wrong
3. Database is not comprehensive and is sometimes incorrect
4. To check if you have the correct place, click on the pin at the start of the location name in the drop down box.
5. To check the content of a long place name,

Inputting your own location field

1. Prompted fields can be overridden
   1. please follow the formatting rules above and take care with spelling
   2. Transcriptions can be poor or incomplete. Try to record the correct location by looking at the original document if possible
   3. Census enumerators didn't always know how to spell the name of a place. You might need to refer to other documents to figure out what they were trying to write
2. County Names
   1. Use the 39 historic counties in England plus the City Of London and "City and County of Bristol"
   2. The following 'Donts' are examples of errors we regularly see
      1. Don’t use County when naming a county (eg Essex not County Essex – there is one exception – County Durham)
      2. Don’t use Devonshire/Somersetshire
      3. Don’t use Lancaster for Lancashire or York for Yorkshire
      4. Don’t use abbreviations
3. Towns and villages
   1. Use St not Saint (eg 'St Helens' not 'Saint Helens'; 'St Ives' not 'Saint Ives')
4. Other
   1. Different places recorded in different censuses – which one to use?
      1. If there are conflicts, use the 'uncertain' button and write Research Notes to explain your thinking
      2. Generally, use earliest record
      3. Baptism location is not necessarily place of birth but abode might be recorded on baptism document
   2. Registration District (eg for a birth, marriage or death) - enter as usual Town, County, Country, mark as 'Uncertain' and show in biography that this is a registration district rather than a specific place,

Place Categorisation

Why do we categorise places (rather than just using Location fields)?

1. They ‘override’ boundary changes (give examples)
2. They drive ‘easy to use’ reports of people linked by the same location

How to categorise

1. Place names must be on Wikipedia and A Vision of Britain
2. Category hierarchy
3. Categorise to narrowest possible level eg

When to categorise (birth, marriage, death, baptism, residence)?

Ask (on Discord) if unsure

Tricky issues/Discussion points

1. Cities with county status
2. Villages with the same name within a county how to clarify Place (Disambiguation), County, Country (?) - drop downs can show several options (Farnworth Lancashire); (Moss Side Lancashire).
3. Fylingdales discussion on G2G
4. What rules to follow in cases of old spelling v current spelling
5. Wikidata
6. Process to collate a list by county of standard locations?