Imported Toponymy and the FamilySearch Place Name Database: Mapping North American Communities with European Capital Namesakes

Place names lend themselves very easily to cartographic and geographic research, and they have been studied extensively from these perspectives. Recent technological advances have allowed for a more rapid geographical study of toponyms of many types. An additional, albeit less visible resource with a robust place name system is the FamilySearch genealogical database. FamilySearch is the world leader in open-source genealogical data and hosts a user-contributed family tree that contains more than one billion names. In this article, the authors explore how the FamilySearch genealogical database likewise offers a user-contributed dimension for analysing and mapping place names. They then use the filter functions of the FamilySearch place database tool to map the spatial diffusion of 438 communities across Canada and the United States that share the names of European capitals. The authors find that these North American “imported capitals” provide evidence of local connections to larger-world happenings, thus broadening the implications of Wilbur Zelinsky’s 1967 theory to include the significance of not only Greco-Roman values but Europeanness as well.