# Geographical location record

Geographical location records are elements of the single location directory, where each location has its coordinates. When you define a location for event/fact in person and family record, you can do this without referring to the location directory. But if you want to be able to see the location on geographical maps in the future, you have to have to add a location record to the location directory—find a settlement on Google Maps and bind the location's coordinates.

You can add text notes or multimedia objects (for example, a photo) to a geographical location.

To assign coordinates to a location do the following:

1. Enter the locations' exact name or one of the possible names to the "Name" field (it is advisable to specify the modern name, because Google Maps knows nothing about historical names of settlements).
2. Click the "Search" button. GEDKeeper will connect with Google Maps and search for the location in Google's databases.
3. When you see the location you require in the "Search coordinates" list, you can click the "Use coordinates" button to assign latitude and longitude of the found location to the target one. Alternatively, you can click "Use name" to assign Google Map's name of the location or define the name yourself.
4. When the "Search coordinates" list does not have a matching location, you have to change the location name and search again. Repeat this until you find a required location.
5. If you still cannot find a matching result, you should assign latitude and longitude of the necessary location yourself—or find the nearest location to the required one, using the steps above, and use that location.

The "Show" button opens mini-map at the specified location.

There is a uniting table on the "Locations" tab of the main working window, which includes all locations available in the database. A location summary to the right of the table shows all events, connected to persons and families, that refer to the selected location.

This dialog is designed to enter and manage historical information about a place: bindings of place names and links to the top levels of the administrative-territorial division hierarchy to the period of action. That is, if a certain pop. point has changed its name several times throughout history, you can enter all the names in this dialog and indicate the time intervals in which they were active. If a certain village or city was part of different districts in different periods, this can be entered in the lower section of the dialog - "Top level links".

It is possible to use different approaches to maintaining a directory of places:

- do not use historical name bindings and hierarchy;
- use only a single-level model: long full names are entered into the name list, from the lowest level - to the highest (or vice versa), and their periods;
- use a full multi-level model: only the immediate part is entered into the name (the name of the city or district, or province, etc.), other parts are distributed among levels, each specific place receives its own record, with its own names and links to the upper levels.

Note: when you enable the option "Options \ Locations and Maps \ Extended Places" and connect hierarchically organized places to dates in the event editing dialog, the places begin to automatically adjust when the date changes (the full long name of the place on a specific date of the event is determined). This mechanism will also work when using the place management tool and at the stage of verification of uploaded files.

The dialog is intended for editing the name of a place and its period of validity. For example: "Serenìsima Repùblega Vèneta", the period of validity of the name from 697 to 12/05/1797.

The dialog is intended for editing a link to a record of a higher-level place and period of subordination. For example, "Venèsia" was part of "Serenìsima Repùblega Vèneta" from 697 to 12/05/1797 and of "Kaiserthum Österreich" from 17/10/1797 to 15/03/1867.

Example of a fully completed history:

See also: Event/fact, Note, Multimedia, Map.