In this database, places are listed in up to four parts the use of which varies a little according to country (italics = if required):

NOTE: Since the advent of Google maps and its integration with this site's software, the use of the county in US place names is problematic - Google Maps does not like them. This may lead to the US place protocol's above not always being followed.

The database counts backwards. If there is only one entry, it is assumed to be a country. So if a source says that Joe Bloggs was born in Glen Coe, with no indication whether this is Canada, Scotland, South Africa or the USA, "Glen Coe" will appear as a country unless I have inserted commas as per the following...

There is a code ("the Chapman code") of abbreviations for countries and provinces/states used by genealogists. See Wirksworth Parish Records - Chapman County Codes or RootsWeb: Country Abbreviations and Characters. I have chosen to spell most place names out in full, first, because the Chapman standards and usage are not consistent, and second, for the sake of the general reader (and myself!) not being required to know what a code means. Mind you, that's where I have been able to decipher the code. There are still some codes in the data because I don't know what they mean and cannot translate them, and I suspect the person has used the wrong code. Eg, one card had "SP" and I suspect they mean Spain, but Spain's code is ES or ESP. When "CA" is the only reference, does this mean California or Canada?

Another by no means universally used protocol is to use commas between place, county, state/province, country even if any of that data is missing, in which case ",,CA," is California and ",,,CA" is Canada! This convention accommodates US usage where counties are significant and commonly used, but does not work in most other places - hence the table above.

I have treated England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands as countries rather than group them as the United Kingdom. This is common practice in genealogy. I have avoided the use of abbreviations except for 'USA' and the states of Australia, Canada and the USA. In Ireland I have omitted the word 'County' or abbreviation 'Co' from county names - this seems to make it easier for Google map searching.

In the interests of making it easier to look up places in Google Maps, places are generally given in their modern context - see somments below. This gets a little tricky - with changes of administrative boundaries, a place can end up in a different shire/county location but it is still the same place! Some general strategies in dealing with place names:

• are left as the inherited data describes them if I am unable to decipher what is intended by that contributor;
• are given in their modern context. I have tried to identify such situations and added a reference note to acknowledge the historical situation. Examples:
• Normandy is listed as in France, but there are times in its history (especially our family tree history) when Normandy was not part of the kingdom of the Franks.
• some of the early kings in England are listed as just that, "in England", because they were not kings "of England" - "England" not being in use much at the time, certainly as a state or nation.
• Bithynia is listed as in Turkey - when there was no Turkey at the time of the references in our data.
• changes in administrative boundaries, especially in the UK and South Africa.