Places

In Transcriptions and Descriptive Metadata

We use the English spellings of places, deferring in transcriptions and metadata to the name used at the time. If there are multiple spellings for a place, we will use the frequency of the use in the documents to guide us.

Example: Current day Oslo was known as Christiana between 1877-1925. Some documents spell it with a C, others with a K. We would use the C because that is the English spelling. Bracket "Kristiana" to "[Christiana]." After 1925, we would use Oslo in metadata, but would not correct use of Christiana in the texts.

Example: Bern, Switzerland is spelled Berne in French and Bern in German. Switzerland uses both languages, so neither one is technically right or wrong. Our documents almost exclusively use the French spelling, so we will use that in metadata and transcriptions as well. Bracket "Bern" if it appears to "[Berne]"

Name Changes of Countries

Example: Myanmar was known as Burma until 1989. We will use the historical name Burma in all metadata.

Example: Russia. It was known as Russia until 1922 when it became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Russia still remained a place— one of the Republics in the USSR. So we will not change "Russia" in texts to [USSR], but references to the country should use the USSR in metadata and subject fields/tags.

In Map Field

In the map field, try the old place name to see if it returns the correct place. If it does not, then use the current place name. This happens particularly often when it is a very old place name (Biblical, medieval). To find the current place, look up the old version in Wikipedia or a Geographic name service to locate the current place.

Example: Emma Goldman was born in Kovno in the Russian Empire. That is present day Kaunas, Lithuania. Searching for Kovno does not work in the map site, so search Kaunas and add it to the map, then edit the name to be Kovno, Russian Empire.

kaunas.JPG
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License