soc.genealogy.surnames

Place Name Abbreviations

Last change: Wed Jul 30 10:57:03 1997 (Central U.S. time)

This is a complete list of place name abbreviations used in soc.genealogy.surnames.

Posts to soc.genealogy.surnames and its associated mailing list (GENNAM-L) generally refer to countries, states and provinces of the world. In order to make it easier to scan the messages or search the list archives, we have compiled a list of semi-standard place name abbreviations to be used in all messages. A description of how the list was compiled can be found at the end of this document.

The following countries are subdivided into states or provinces, each with its own specific abbreviation. If you are searching for ancestors in one of these countries, you may find it helpful to jump directly to that section of the list and see what abbreviations are available.

Australia | Austria / Oesterreich | Canada | Ceskoslovensko / Czechoslovakia | Denmark | England | France | Germany | Holy Roman Empire / Heiliges Rvmisches Reich | Hungary / Magyarorszag | Ireland | Kroatien / Croatia / Hrvatska | Northern Ireland | Norway | Portugal | Romania | Scotland | Sweden | Switzerland | United Kingdom | United States of America | Wales | Yugoslavia

For the curious, here's how the list was derived (description courtesy of Karen Isaacson, manager of the Roots Surname List):
These abbreviations are a convex combination of United States and Canadian postal codes, Chapman codes, three letter ISO codes for nations, Norwegian standard county codes, plus some abbreviations I invented, and several German/Swiss/Austrian codes compliments of Christian Carey, who also provided the Norwegian codes and helped me untangle the various UK abbreviations.