Locations on the Western Front

Graeme · 31 May 2007, 02:52 PM

Over the years, when I've tried matching claims to losses, one thing that has irritated me is the spelling (or mis-spelling) of place-names. To try and iron out the inconsistencies, I've started compiling a database in which I can list all the names I've come across and correct the spellings - so far I've got a list of 3,758 places which has been whittled down from 3,900+ and will no doubt be further pruned back.

To give an idea of where each town/village etc is located, my plan is to show the Region and Department along with the map reference (degrees, minutes, seconds North and degrees, minutes, seconds East). For example,

Abancourt ; Nord ; Nord ; 50:14:07 N ; 3:12:43 E
Abancourt ; Picardie ; Oise ; 49:41:47 N ; 1:45:53 E

I have used the website http://www.gaf.tm.fr/fr/indexdesvilles to obtain the correct spelling of place-names together with the appropriate Region and Department. Once I've got the correct spelling, I can use this in multimap.com to get the map reference for each location.

So that I can use a similar format for locations in Belgium and Germany, does anybody know of comparable websites I can use?

Thanks in advance.

Graeme

Immo_Frese · 1 June 2007, 03:08 AM

Graeme,
your project sounds very interesting. I often have problems with places in the Lorraine/Alsace region. A lot of places, villages and communes changed names after the french took over that region with the end of WW1. The following website is a good tool to find out the names from 1871-1918 and to compare it with the ones after 1918...

http://chartonf.club.fr/lorcom.html

Immo

Immo_Frese · 1 June 2007, 03:29 AM

...for Germany these two links might be helpfull:

http://www.deutschland-adressen.de/Orte.php

http://www.orte.de/

Immo

Immo_Frese · 1 June 2007, 03:42 AM

The following link is a good tool to find out to which kingdom, grand-duchy or duchy the town in question belonged during the era 1871 - 1918 within the Deutsches Reich...

http://www.verwaltungsgeschichte.de/ortsbuch39.html

Immo

Graeme · 1 June 2007, 10:48 AM

Immo

Many thanks for the links, they look to be just what I need. I think I'll have to get out my German dictionary, though,

, my German being nowhere near as good as your English.

Thanks

Graeme

Bletchley · 2 June 2007, 01:51 AM

Also, the article on Flemish place names by Regulus in the 'Articles:Reference' section of this forum, if you havn't already seen it (you probably have...).

Bletchley

Graeme · 2 June 2007, 03:25 PM

Bletchley

One I missed

Thanks for the tip.

Graeme