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'UNITED KINGDOM'

Lisa Hesterman

October 02, 2021 01:37

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For those who don't know:

The Treaty of Union in 1707 combined the kingdoms of Scotland and England, which included Wales, and led to the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Prior to 1707, there was no U.K. It simply didn't exist yet.

However, the Geni software was apparently rewritten to attach an automatic (United Kingdom) for all dates, including prior to 1701, whenever England, Scotland or Wales are entered as countries.

It would sure be nice if that error could be fixed with programming that limits that feature to the appropriate dates.

It is misleading and incorrect as it is now.

Sincerely,

Lisa Hesterman

1 comment

• 1
  
  Ashley Odell October 15, 2021 21:17

  Hi, Lisa. When you see a country name in parentheses, that means Geni is telling you that's the name of the present-day country -- it isn't trying to say that the name of the country back then was what's in the parentheses.

  So if a user who wasn't particularly great in their geography classes sees "Wales" as the country on a profile, and they don't know where that is, the info in the parentheses is there to alert them that Wales is now part of the United Kingdom, and that they can check UK genealogy databases for more information on that ancestor.

  Likewise, a profile for someone born in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic might say "(Tajikistan)", or a profile for someone born in Danzig, Prussia might say "(Poland)", since Danzig is now the Polish city of Gdańsk.

  So think of it not as correcting the info for that period, but rather giving additional modern context.