Place Entity

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Overview

A Place entity represents a geographic location relevant to the family archive. Places form a hierarchical structure that supports genealogical research across varying levels of granularity (country, region, county, town, street, etc.).

Core Concepts

Place Hierarchy

Places form a tree structure where each place can have a parent place, enabling representation of administrative hierarchies and geographic containment relationships.

# places/place-england.glx
places:
  place-england:
    name: "England"
    type: country

# places/place-yorkshire.glx
places:
  place-yorkshire:
    name: "Yorkshire"
    type: county
    parent: place-england

# places/place-leeds.glx
places:
  place-leeds:
    name: "Leeds"
    type: city
    parent: place-yorkshire

Place Names

Places support multiple names to represent:

• Historical name changes
• Alternative spellings and transliterations
• Native language vs. colonial names
• Informal/colloquial names

Each name can be classified and dated.

Properties

Required Properties

Property	Type	Description
Entity ID (map key)	string	Unique identifier (alphanumeric/hyphens, 1-64 chars)
name	string	Current/primary place name

Optional Properties

Property	Type	Description
parent	string	Reference to parent place in hierarchy
type	string	Place type from vocabularies/place-types.glx
alternative_names	array	Historical/alternative names for this place
latitude	number	WGS84 latitude coordinate
longitude	number	WGS84 longitude coordinate
jurisdiction	string	Formal jurisdiction identifier or code
place_format	string	Standard format for place hierarchy (GEDCOM PLAC.FORM style)
notes	string	Free-form notes about the place

Place Types

Place types are defined in vocabularies/place-types.glx within each archive.

See Vocabularies - Place Types for:

• Complete list of standard place types
• How to add custom place types
• Vocabulary file structure and examples
• Validation requirements

Alternative Names Structure

alternative_names:
  - name: "York"
    type: "historical"
    language: "en"
    date_range:
      start: "1066"
      end: "present"
  - name: "Jorvik"
    type: "historical"
    language: "en"
    date_range:
      start: "867"
      end: "1066"

Usage Patterns

In Events/Facts

Places are referenced in events to indicate where the event occurred:

type: "birth"
place: "place-leeds123"

In Addresses

Places can be components of addresses within person records or residence events:

residence:
  place: "place-leeds123"
  date: "1850-1900"

GEDCOM Mapping

GLX Property	GEDCOM Element	Notes
id	(synthetic)	Not in GEDCOM; generated from place data
name	PLAC	Text value of PLAC tag
parent	(implicit)	Represented in hierarchical PLAC structure
type	PLAC.TYPE	Non-standard; used in extended GEDCOM
latitude	PLAC.MAP.LATI	WGS84 latitude
longitude	PLAC.MAP.LONG	WGS84 longitude

Examples

Simple Location

# places/place-paris.glx
places:
  place-paris:
    name: "Paris"
    type: city
    parent: place-france
    latitude: 48.8566
    longitude: 2.3522

Complex Hierarchical Location

# places/place-leeds-district.glx
places:
  place-leeds-registration:
    name: "Leeds Registration District"
    type: registration_district
    parent: place-yorkshire
    alternative_names:
      - name: "Leeds"
        type: "informal"
      - name: "West Riding of Yorkshire"
        type: "historical"
    latitude: 53.8008
    longitude: -1.5491
    jurisdiction: "england.yorkshire.leeds"
    place_format: "City, County, Country"
    notes: "Historical registration district for civil registration purposes"

File Organization

Note: File organization is flexible. Entities can be in any .glx file with any directory structure. The example below shows one-entity-per-file organization, which is recommended for collaborative projects (better git diffs) but not required.

Place files are typically stored in a places/ directory:

places/
├── countries/
│   ├── place-england.glx
│   ├── place-scotland.glx
│   └── place-usa.glx
├── regions/
│   ├── place-yorkshire.glx
│   ├── place-lancashire.glx
│   └── place-massachusetts.glx
└── cities/
    ├── place-leeds.glx
    ├── place-liverpool.glx
    └── place-boston.glx

Validation Rules

• Place hierarchy must be acyclic (no circular parent references)
• Coordinates, if present, must be valid WGS84 values
• Parent place must exist before referencing it
• At least one name (primary or alternative) must exist
• Type should follow standardized taxonomy

See Also

• Event Entity
• Vocabularies
• Data Types