A genealogist testing Viewfore sent us a tree that had pins in the wrong countries. One ancestor was born in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America. Viewfore put that Salem in India.
Why it happened
Many genealogists record a place the way it was named at the time of the event. FamilySearch works this way too. A birth in Salem in 1700 was not in the United States, because there was no United States. It was in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Viewfore's place finder only knew today's countries and US states. When it read "Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America" it had no idea where that was, so it searched the whole world for Salem. The largest Salem in the world is in India, so that is where the pin went.
Nothing on the map showed that the pin was a guess.
What Viewfore knows now
Viewfore now reads about 300 historical and regional names and knows where each one was. A few of them:
- Colonial America: Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, New Netherland, the Province of Pennsylvania, and British Colonial America.
- Old US territories, and states at their old size. Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820, so Portland, Cumberland, Massachusetts lands in Maine. West Virginia and Kentucky were once part of Virginia.
- Canada West and Canada East, Upper and Lower Canada.
- The German states and provinces: Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, Hanover, Bavaria, Württemberg, and more.
- Austria-Hungary and its lands, including Galicia and Bohemia.
- The Russian Empire and the partitions of Poland.
- Italy before it was one country, the Ottoman lands, and colonial names around the world.
- Continents, and At Sea.
Some modern names now cover their old borders too. Breslau, Germany lands in Wrocław, Poland, and Kassa, Hungary lands in Košice, Slovakia. When the town on the map has a different name from the one in your file, the card says so: "Matched to Wrocław."
Vague places get an approximate pin
Some records only name a region. A birth in "Prussia" is true, but it is not a town. Other records hedge: "probably Breslau", "Christiania (now Oslo)", "Salem or Danvers".
- A record that names only a region gets an approximate pin in the middle of that region. It is drawn see-through with a dashed outline, and the card and popup say "Approximate location: Prussia". It never looks like a recorded town.
- "Probably", "abt", "of", and similar words are set aside so the place itself can be found.
- "Christiania (now Oslo)" is looked up as Oslo.
- "Unknown", "?", and "Same" are treated as no place at all, instead of being sent off to find a town called Unknown.
- A birth "At Sea" gets an approximate pin in the ocean, and Viewfore does not go looking for a town named after the ship.
People placed by region are counted as mapped, because the record does say where they were, just not exactly. The coverage details list them separately as "placed by region only".
How we checked it
The list was built by hand from historical geography, then checked against FamilySearch Places and Wikipedia. The example family on this site now uses the names of the time too: its colonial Virginia births read "British Colonial America", and one line starts in Stettin, Pommern, Prussia.
What it does not do yet
- A historical name that is not on the list still gets searched the old way. If you find one, tell us and we will add it.
- Viewfore does not read the date when it looks up a place. A town whose state changed can land in the wrong one. A Nashville, North Carolina from before 1796 lands in today's Nashville, North Carolina, not in Tennessee.
- Place names with a parish or district word attached, like "Ål parish", are not cleaned up yet.
If a place in your tree lands in the wrong spot, email hello@viewfore.com with the place exactly as it is written in your file. That one line is usually enough for us to fix it. You do not need to send the file.