Gazetteer
Sorry, this is not a SQLite question...
Looking at some of the posts on the RootsMagic forum it appears that the Gazetteer was acquired from a third party and has never been updated. (The data for Vietnam uses adminstrative divisions that were changed in 1997, so the data is at least 30 years old - which is not such a big deal for a historical database, but there are many updates that could be made). I've been working on reverse-engineering the file format and I was wondering if anyone else has already done this? Is anyone aware of any documentation relating to the PlacesDB.dat file?
I can't address the RM gazetteer issue directly, but I've decided to use FamilySearch place database standard names.
As far as I know, it's quite up to date and has an open API that can be queried from the software I'm writing to update the RM database directly.
Not nearly as my convenient as having everything integrated into RM, but I'm not willing to wait for for the gazetteer to be updated.
Richard Otter
Here's a link to an 8-years old enhancement request to make the RM Gazetteer editable. Both Michael's and Richard's approaches to improving support for Places in RootsMagic would be welcome as there is no sign that the developers are going to do anything about it.
It may be slow to load. My chromebook says the Wayback Machine takes too long to respond and displays nada.
Scroll down to the end and you will see a couple of other posts from that era about the Gazetteer. I have a memory of some discussion about its source but I've not been able to find it.
On FamilySearch Why are some place names very "dirty" ?
I wonder if the place.dat file is editbable with something like MS access or such?
@kevync: the PlacesDB.dat is not a typical database and it cannot be modified. It is effectively "compiled" in the same way an executable or library is compiled for a program on the computer. Instead of source code, though, the source is a database of places. I've got a Python script that will convert PlacesDB.dat to a SQLite database, but it's still not perfect. I'm hoping, once it is more reliable, to be able to go the other way and convert a SQLite database into a PlacesDB.dat file that RootsMagic will work with.
@ve3meo: Renee Zamora posted on the forum that the database was acquired from a third party. I suspect something drastic happened - such as the vendor folding - which has left RootsMagic Inc. without a means to update the database. The installed PlacesDB.dat has a timestamp of 2006 so I'd say it has never been updated.
Dear RootsMagic Inc: please ditch PlacesDB.dat and incorporate the APIs provided by the World Historical Gazetteer and FamilySearch Places into RootsMagic!
Quote from Michael Henry on 2026-09-04, 6:27 amDear RootsMagic Inc: please ditch PlacesDB.dat and incorporate the APIs provided by the World Historical Gazetteer and FamilySearch Places into RootsMagic!
You'll need to get that request into RM Inc more directly. I suggest the Community attn:Renee Zamora. At least it will get on her list for the two developers to look at. But maybe you've already made the request and have even had dialog with Bruce or Michael.