In an associated thread I mentioned formats for gazetteers that could be used as a "database" for implementing multiple hierarchy place authorities. Here is a too simple example format, with a few examples to give an idea of a very simple approach. A complete gazetteer would obviously have many millions of entries. Example Format: uniqueId : name : timePeriod : language : type : parentId* Example Gazetteer File: 10101: North America : : en : Continent 34343: Europe : : en : Continent 11111: United States : 1776 to present : en : NationState: 10101 44444: United Kingdom: xxxx to xxxx : en : NationState: 34343 89999: Denmark : xxxx to xxxx : en : NationState : 34343 22222: New England : : en : InformalRegion : 11111 33333: Connecticut : 1776 to present : en : ProvinceState: 11111, 22222 55555: Connecticut Colony : 1636 to 1776 : en : Colony : 44444, 22222 34543: New London : 1636 to 1776 : en : County : 55555 34544: New London : 1776 to present : en : County : 33333 34643: New London : 1636 to 1776 : en : City : 34543 34643: New London : 1776 to present : en : City : 34544 66666: Great Britain : : en : Island : 34343 77777: Greenland : : en : Island : 10101 88888: Greenland : : en : Dependency: 89999 80808: Isle of Man : xxxx to xxxx : en : CrownDependency : 44444 81818: Andreas : xxxx to xxxx : en : CivilParish : 80808 Omit dates where the name is "timeless" (e.g., North America). There would be a relatively small number of types. I've suggested some of them here. Some names are used twice as part of different hierarchies. Names are ambiguous when not fully specified. It's the way the world works. Deal with it. In a real gazetteer some names would be used hundreds of times, fortunately each with a uniqueID. Note that United Kingdom is a NationState whereas Great Britain is "just" an Island in Europe. That's the way of it. Homework: Add England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. What type would you give them? Try adding "British Isles" (what type would you give them) and handling both the NationState of Ireland and the Island of Ireland. Note how Greenland is both an Island (so in North America) and a member of the Danish Commonwealth (so "in" Denmark). Note how in the case of Greenland we need to worry about the difference between political containment and geographical containment. That is, Greenland, politically part of Denmark, is not geographically part of Denmark or Europe! Lots of complications, but not uncontrollable. Smart people can figure this stuff out. I've shown the tip of a large iceberg here. I've avoided certain issues, such as "official" names, "short form" names, which would require gazetteer entries to have more properties than are shown in this simple example. So the format would clearly need to have more "columns." How many do you think there would have to be? Political hierarchies will get real nasty real fast. Try to imagine what would be needed to cover all names found in what is today Poland over the past three centuries! This would be a massive undertaking, but I think the path is pretty clear. I already have some massive gazetteer files very similar to this format for a few of the software programs I have written. Tom Wetmore

On Tue, 2 Oct 2012 11:06:02 -0700 (PDT), Tom Wetmore <ttw4@verizon.net> wrote in soc.genealogy.computing: >In an associated thread I mentioned formats for gazetteers that could be >used as a "database" for implementing multiple hierarchy place >authorities. > >Here is a too simple example format, with a few examples to give an idea of a >very simple approach. A complete gazetteer would obviously have many >millions of entries. > >Example Format: There was an US army site that had all places on the world. Many places named with the local name and many kinds of places. I forgot the name of site but made a copy years ago. Something like nima.mil with some free FTP access. Denis -- Denis Beauregard - généalogiste émérite (FQSG) Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - www.francogene.com/genealogie--quebec/ French in North America before 1722 - www.francogene.com/quebec--genealogy/ Sur cédérom à 1780 - On CD-ROM to 1780