Subject
Place Names
Posted In
Description
Good Day!
I am new to the society, and I am trying to add the surnames of my family to the database, but I’m not sure which place name to put in because there are so many names for the same place.
My relatives are from Bystre (Wustrei), Braunau (Broumov), Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic (Bohemia). I want to keep the place name consistent, but I do not know which language which place name is in.
Because the time period I am dealing with is pre-1918, I’m confident I should use Bohemia as the country, but what should I enter as city and district??
Any help would be appreciated.. thanks!
Jeannette Brewer
Contact
Comments
Hello Jeannette:
There is no right or wrong answer here, but keep in mind that with your entry, you should try to maximize the chances that your surname/village entries actually get found by other researchers who use our website:
There are 3 pieces of info to enter:
1) “City/Village of Origin”—I recommend that you go with the generic form: ‘village, larger city, region’, because there may be multiple villages/cities with the same name in the given country (e.g. ‘Chocen, Vysoke Myto, Bohemia’);
2. Country (enter ‘Czech Republic’ rather than ‘Bohemia’ or ‘Moravia’, or any other historical region, that is no longer an independent state); and,
3. Immigration area (US or other)—I recommend that you use the generic form: ‘city, county, state, country abbreviation’ (e.g. ‘Silver Lake, Mcleod County, MN, USA’)
Keep in mind that CGSI has members and researchers from a wide variety of countries and are researching ancestors (possibly your relatives) who settled in other countries, not necessarily the USA. So adding the additional info might make the difference of making a connection or not.
I hope that helps, good luck!
Tony Kadlec
CGSI Corresponding Secretary/Research Coordinator