The Reeves Project Learning Series

The First Steps pages for new TRP Community Members were designed to be worked through in sequence. This next group of “Moving Along” pages introduce some of the more advanced topics and ways of working within TRP. They are generally free standing, with larger topic split over a couple of linked pages.

Moving Along with .. Tags

Within TRP we ask community members to tag the Person and Gleaning pages they created based on the locations associated with that wiki page. This then provides an alternate means of TRP_Explore. (In prior versions of the underlying Tiki software tags were known as Free Tags or Freetags)

You were first introduced to Tags in TRP_First_Steps_Part_5 when you created your first Person Page. The Properties Section of that page explained…

The tags should reflect all locations mentioned in the Summary and Narrative. Both country and state (US), county (GB) or province (CAN) should be reflected, but not towns, parishes or US counties. Rather than spelling out place names in full, standard abbreviations are used.

The key is that in general we ask that standard abbreviations for just the Country and State/County/Province are provided. This page provides greater detail on the tags we expect to see used and this will enable you better use the tag browser. But remember the tag browser is only as good as the tagging you and your fellow community members apply to the pages we all create and update. Please always remember to review and update the tags when you edit a page.

Note that our early adoption of the use of two letter US State codes now precludes the use of ISO-3166-1 alpha 2 codes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2 for many other countries.

For all countries, except the USA and the British Isles, we use ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country codes plus the ISO 3166-2 codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2 for State, County, Province, Département or similar administrative subdivisions, as described below.

Tags for the British Isles

For Great Britain and Northern Ireland the preferred country code is the ISO-3166-1 alpha 2 code GB and you are asked to avoid using UK.

Within British and Irish genealogy, there is a well established set of codes for abbreviating the counties of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and also the Counties of the Republic of Ireland, the Chapman Codes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_code

In addition to using those County codes, please also add one of the seven specific Chapman Country codes of CHI, ENG, IOM, IRL, NIR, SCT, or WLS. So, for example, a page with reference to Hampshire would be tagged with GB ENG HAM, to Jersey with GB CHI JSY and to Kirkcudbrightshire with GB SCT KKD.

For much of time frame of interest to genealogists the Republic of Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland and the Chapman Codes fully embrace the historic Irish Counties. Co-incidentally the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for Ireland is also IRL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3
So, for example, a page with historical (pre 1922) references to County Cork should be tagged GB IRL COR

Additionally, you are encouraged to tag Irish County pages with their ISO 3166-2 codes, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:IE

Tags for the USA

For the United States of America, the preferred country code is the ISO-3166-1 alpha 2 code US which is utilised along with the two character alphabetic State codes. For the continental portions of the USA, the alphabetic ASNI and USPS code are identical. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_state_codes
So, for example, a wiki page with reference to Nebraska should be tagged US NE and to California with US CA. The country code should only appear once, regardless of the number of state codes applied to the wiki page.

Tags for Canada

For Canada, the country code used should be CAN, the ISO 3166-1 alpha 3 code. This avoids potential confusion with CA used for the US State of California. The Province or Territory should be represented by the appropriate two character taken from the Canada Post list https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/addressing-guidelines/symbols-and-abbreviations.page#canadian-pt (accessed August 2021) . So page with reference to Nova Scotia should be tagged CAN NS

Additionally, the appropriate ISO 3166-2 codes for the 10 Provinces and 3 Territories may also be included.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:CA
So, for example, a page with reference to Newfoundland Canada must be tagged CAN NL and may be tagged CAN NL CA-NL

Tags for Australia

For Australia, the country code used should be AUS, the ISO 3166-1 alpha 3 code.

The appropriate ISO 3166-2 codes for the 6 States and 2 Territories should also be included.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:AU
So, for example, a page with references to Van Diemen's Land should be tagged AUS AU-TAS

Tags for Ireland/Éire

For Ireland prior to 1922, please see Tags for the British Isles.
For Ireland since 1922 (Irish Free State & Republic of Ireland), the country code used should be IRL, the ISO 3166-1 alpha 3 code.

The appropriate ISO 3166-2 codes for the counties should also be included. The inclusion of the codes for the Provinces is not necessary.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:IE
So, for example a page with references to Castlebar, County Mayo should be tagged IRL IE-MO

Tags for New Zealand

For New Zealand, the country code used should be NZL, the ISO 3166-1 alpha 3 code.

The ISO 3166-2 codes for New Zealand are defined at two levels of subdivision and you are encouraged to use both level in TRP Tags
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:NZ
So, for example, a page with references to Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand should be tagged NZL NZ-S NZ-CAN

Tags for Elsewhere

The vast majority of Reeves genealogical events will have occurred in one of the primary English speaking countries whose specific codes are described above. (For other Commonwealth Countries, please consult with your Mentor Team for guidance. Seeking guidance is particularly important for those countries where the ISO 3166-3 code duplicates a Chapman code, which are already extensively used in TRP.)

But events, such as death in war can occur virtually anywhere in the world. For these locations, please tag the page with the ISO 3166-1 alpha 3 code for the country and also with the ISO 3166-2 code for the modern day principal subdivision (eg province or state) in which the event took place. Whilst the modern day subdivision may not have existed at the time of the historical, genealogically significant, event, it does provide an effective way of geographically grouping such events.

For example, a death during WW1 in the Pas de Calais département in France would be tagged FRA FR-62, in the Aisne département of France with tags FRA FR-02 and in Hainaut Province of Belgium with tags BEL BE-WHT
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:FR and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:BE