WikiProject: Swedish Place Names

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Goal
The Swedish Place Names WikiProject is focused on building great "place name lists" on every Swedish parish page in the FamilySearch Wiki (2,922 pages as of March 2011.)

Purpose
Too often we see place names written in a Swedish record that we can't interpret. This might be due to a older style of handwriting, bleeding text, or damage to a record. Yet figuring out a place name is vital to documentation and strategy. Although there are multiple databases of Swedish place names, most of them are on C.d. that a person has to purchase (See Swedish Gazetteers.) The purpose of the Swedish Place Names WikiProject is to create a similar resource readily available and for free through the FamilySearch Wiki.

Participation with this WikiProject
Anyone can help with the writing of place name on the parish pages. The Swedish User Group is working through the counties systematically. Participants help by looking up a household examination index from about 1840 (through SVAR, Genline (now available through Ancestry.com), Arkiv Digital, or from microfilm) and then type the names of the places onto the parish page in the FamilySearch Wiki. To see a good example of a well developed place list on a parish page see: Björnlunda parish, Sweden.

Steps
1. Sign into the FamilySearch Wiki

2. Go to the parish page you want to work on. This can be done by browsing through the county click-able map on the Sweden Portal Page to the county, and then the parish. Or a person can type the name of the parish in the search field and click on the magnifying glass.

3. Once you are on the parish page, click on the little edit box symbol (looks like a little box with a pencil in it) to the side of the words Place names.

4. Place your pointer on the blank space under the words Place Names and click once. If you are signed in you will see a blinking cursor appear.

5. Type the place names in alphabetical order with a comma between each one. Spell the place names exactly as you see them in the place index. Use your best judgement when there is some redundancy. Write them in correct Swedish alphabetical order, using the correct Swedish letters of Å, Ä, and Ö. To learn more about the alphabetical order and how to type in these letters see the article Sweden: Type the letters Å, Ä, and Ö.

6. Scroll down to the References section and add your source citation. We are doing this by typing in the name of the parish, the word Husförhörslängd with the span of years that you used as your source, followed by the word Ortregister. For example: Björnlunda församling husförhörslängd 1846-1850, Ortregister. If there was no ortregister and you created the list by typing the names at the top of each page in the Husförhör, then leave the word Ortregister off.

7. Click "Save Page" when you are done.

Tips

 * Once you click on "Edit" a timer begins a count down of about 20 minutes. If the count down times out before you click "Save Page" you will loose your work. To avoid loosing your work:

- Click "Save Page" occasionally

- Copy your work to the clipboard before saving

- Work offline in a program like Word and then paste it into the parish page.

Participating Swedish User Group Members
Project Leaders: LarsonW and MorrisGF