Verify Places (referred to previously as Improve Place Names) is an activity in Get Involved that invites you to help improve the quality of place information in Family Tree. Your efforts improve the accuracy of the Family Tree and ultimately result in more record hints and more ancestor discoveries for the people who use FamilySearch.
How it works
At FamilySearch, our Family Tree relies on a database of verified place names to help document the life events of your ancestors. Sometimes, a user enters a place name that hasn’t been verified yet. The Verify Places activity identifies these places and asks you to replace them with the best possible match from the database.
How do I pick the best match?
The following strategies or tips can help you:
- Remove details from the unverified place name that are too specific or that aren’t necessary, like house numbers or voting districts.
- Consider where the person’s other life events took place and whether one of those place names could be used.
- Match the date when the ancestor’s life event occurred to the date ranges from the places database.
- Consult an online map. Often the unverified place is close to a larger, well-known place that exists in our database and that can be used as an alternative.
Steps
- Sign in to FamilySearch.
- At the top of the page, click the Get Involved tab.
- From the drop-down menu, select Opportunities.
- Scroll to the Opportunities section and click Get Started on the activity card for Verify Places.
- After clicking Get Started, a pop-up field asks you to select a country or location where the places to verify are located. You can also select the number of places to verify in a batch.
- Click Search on the pop-up field.
- When the activity begins, there are two columns:
- The left column provides a summary of the person in Family Tree, including information about life events.
- The right column identifies an unverified place name for a life event. The unverified place name is highlighted by a yellow rectangle.
- Review the unverified place name. Consider the strategies outlined above. When you are ready, review the list of suggested place names.
- Look for the best possible match. When you see it, click it.
- If you don’t see a good match, try adjusting or deleting the existing search terms and applying the strategies mentioned above.
- After selecting a match, click Next. If you want to skip this unverified place, click Skip.