Kathy Zipperer is a Wonderful WikiTreer

Question

Hello Kathy, I hope I am not in the wrong place to bring up the subject of USA. I need help with country names. Don't understand why the world wide accepted acronym USA cannot be used to designate the United States of America. Technically, the country name, United States is not correct because it is an abbreviated version of the United States of America. There must be a WiKiTree rule somewhere that I have overlooked.  Thanking you in advance for your assistance in this matter.

USA 

Answer 1

Hi Larry! I'm not Kathy, but I know this issue has been hotly debated in the past. One such discussion is at https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/854288/united-states-usa-location-fields-has-the-standard-changed

Basically, if you use the suggestion which comes up when you are filling in the place data fields you will be using "United States." However, you are allowed to override the suggestion and use USA or US or whatever you prefer. The suggestions, by the way, are from FamilySearch.org and are not a WikiTree function so to request a change in the default suggestion, you would need to take it up with them.

Answer 2

Larry, thank you for the honor.

If I changed a location name to United States, it was because that was what is in the drop down box for locations.  Not because USA is incorrect.  Usually, I'm adding the county information and using the drop down list, so I'm getting the county information and United States comes along for the ride.

Please feel free to use USA -- which is completely acceptable on WikiTree.  I'm sorry if I changed that on a profile that was after July 4, 1776.  As part of the Clean-A-Thon at the end of April, most of the USA too early in birth, death and marriage locations were removed.  WikiTree rules are to use the location that was used at the time, so United States of America (or United States or USA) are not used in a location before the Declaration of Independence date.