# Metric Books of Georgia 1819–1930 — Map Guide This is a short manual for everyone using the interactive "Metric Books of Georgia" map. It describes every feature, button and mode, explains what is shown on the map and where to find the original documents. Map address: --- ## 1. What this map is about The map shows parishes of the Georgian Eparchy from the 19th to early 20th century for which the National Historical Archive of Georgia holds metric books (records of births, marriages and deaths). Each point is a church or settlement where a metric book was kept during the indicated years. What every point card contains: - **Settlement** (name in Russian, English, Georgian); - **Church** — name of the temple (if known); - **Uezd** and **region** (historical administrative attribution); - **Years** the metric book was kept, start and end dates; - **Missing years** (gaps in the archive inventory, if any); - **Coordinates** (latitude / longitude); - for some settlements — a **historical name** (e.g. "former Akhalkalaki") and **administrator notes** about discrepancies. The colour of a point matches the period when its book started. The palette follows the Okabe-Ito scheme and is colour-blind friendly. --- ## 2. Languages and basic UI In the top right corner — language switcher: **RU / EN / ქარ**. Switches the interface and card labels on the fly, no reload required. In the top left — search field: searches by settlement, church, uezd and region across all three languages at once. Partial words work. Below the field you'll see the result counter and quick links. The top right also contains: - **Reset view** (circular arrow) — returns the map to the initial zoom and centre. - **"Add settlement coordinates"** — opens the panel of settlements without coordinates (see § 6). - **"Before / After"** (compare icon) — appears when curators have published edits; one button toggles the map between the base dataset and the dataset with edits applied. The number next to it is the count of edits. --- ## 3. The point card Click any point — a card opens with full information about the parish. In the card you'll see: - settlement and church name; - uezd / region; - years the book was kept, start and end periods; - missing years (if any); - a **"hist. name"** or **"former"** badge — if the village was known by different names at different times (e.g. "Mepiskalaki (former Akhalkalaki)"); - a **"possible match"** badge — if the dataset contains a settlement with the same name in a different uezd; useful for checking whether it is the same place under a changed administrative attribution; - **10 km radius analysis** — a button that highlights all parishes nearby (useful when the metric book of the desired village is lost — records may have been kept in a neighbouring parish); - **"Report an issue"** button — sends a note to the administrator about a map error, wrong coordinates, typo or improvement suggestion. Contact details are optional. --- ## 4. Colour legend (book start period) At the bottom or side of the map there is a clickable legend listing the periods. Points are coloured by the period in which their metric book started. - Any period can be **toggled on or off** with a single click on its badge — the map filters points immediately. - You can disable all periods except one and quickly see how, say, parishes from the second half of the 19th century are distributed. - The palette is friendly to people with colour-vision deficiency (Okabe-Ito). --- ## 5. 10 km neighbourhood analysis Inside a point card — the **"10 km radius analysis"** button. After you click it, the map highlights all parishes within 10 kilometres of the selected point. This is especially useful when: - the metric book of the village you need is lost — see which neighbouring parishes kept records in the relevant period; - you want to understand which church the residents of a small hamlet could have been attached to; - you want to see a "cluster" of parishes belonging to one uezd. To clear the selection — click the button again or click the map away from the selection. --- ## 6. Settlements without coordinates and how to add yours Some settlements from the archive inventories have not been located yet — no coordinates have been found. You can see them and help the map: 1. Open the **"Add settlement coordinates"** panel (the list icon in the top right). 2. Find the settlement by name (search works in all three languages). 3. Press **"Find on map"** — if the map already knows a similar settlement, it will jump to it. 4. To suggest a point — enter latitude / longitude or use the helper: open the OpenStreetMap coordinate picker, find the place and confirm. 5. The coordinates will be sent to the administrator for moderation. Once approved, the point appears for everyone with all the settlement, church and date information attached. You can submit coordinates without registering. --- ## 7. Reporting an issue / proposing a correction - **"Report an issue"** (bottom right) — a generic form for any remarks: a map error, wrong coordinates, typo in a name, an improvement idea. Contact is optional. - Inside a point card administrators can use the **"Propose uezd correction"** button — for resolving disputed historical administrative attributions. This button is hidden from regular users. All messages go through moderation and are not published automatically. --- ## 8. "Before / After" mode (base vs. edits) When curators edit cards and publish their changes, a compare-icon button appears in the top right corner of the map: - **"After"** — the map shows the data with edits applied (default for everyone). - **"Before"** — the map shows the original repository data, as it was before the edits. A single button toggles both states. The number next to it shows how many edits are currently published on top of the base. Useful for transparently seeing what has been corrected. --- ## 9. Where to find the original documents (From the built-in "Where to find the documents?" help.) The metric books of Georgia are kept at the **National Historical Archive of Georgia** (Tbilisi, Vazha-Pshavela ave. 1). - Documents are in **fond 489, inventory 6**. - The metric books inventory is published on the archive's site: - How to start working with the archive, register in the reading hall and order files is described in detail at: If a settlement on the map has no metric book — it does not mean it never existed: records may have been kept in a neighbouring parish. Use the **10 km radius analysis** (see § 5) to find the nearest surviving books. --- ## 10. Embedding the map on your site The map can be embedded as an `iframe` via a special "embed" mode (address `…/embed`). In this mode auxiliary buttons are hidden, but the search, legend, languages and point cards remain. Suitable for blogs, regional communities and educational sites. --- ## 11. Sources, attribution and feedback - All data comes from the holdings of the National Historical Archive of Georgia. - The map is maintained on the basis of open data and user corrections. - Any remarks and clarifications — through the **"Report an issue"** button in the bottom right corner or via the **"Propose uezd correction"** form inside a point card. Thank you for helping to refine the historical geography of Georgia. --- ## 12. The Tbilisi tab and old city maps A dedicated **Tbilisi** tab (`/tbilisi`) shows a map of 108 city parishes across all confessions — Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Molokan and more. Each card lists the years of the parish registers and a direct link to the record in the National Historical Archive of Georgia catalogue, with the record number, so you can jump straight to the file description. Church points can also be overlaid on the **old maps of Tiflis from 1898 and 1904**. - On **desktop**, the map switcher sits in the bottom-left corner. The "Base map" dropdown lets you pick the 1898 or 1904 map, or "No base" (the modern basemap only). Next to it are an opacity slider and a "Police districts" checkbox (1904 map only). - On **tablet and mobile**, the same controls collapse into a single compact **"Old maps"** pill in the bottom-left corner. Tapping it opens the dropdown, opacity slider and districts toggle. - To return to the plain view, select "No base" in the dropdown. The old maps are georeferenced to modern coordinates, so the church points line up with both the historical street grid and present-day toponymy. --- ## Author and copyright **Author:** Vitalii Shtybin — independent researcher, author of [datatells.info](https://datatells.info). Other projects and articles by the author are available on the main site. © 2025 Vitalii Shtybin. All rights reserved. The maps, data compilations, accompanying texts and design are an original work protected by copyright. When citing or republishing, please credit the author and link to . --- ## 2026 updates: confession filter and collapsible legends - **Confession / community filter** (left side, above the circle-size scale). The same 8 categories as on the Tbilisi map: Georgians (Orthodox), Armenians, Russians, Military, Jews (synagogues), Catholics, Lutherans, Other. Click a category to isolate it on the map; **Shift+click** for multi-select; the top button is "Show all / Clear selection"; the arrow on the left collapses the legend. - **Year colour legend** (right side) now follows the same rules: click to isolate a period, **Shift+click** for multi-select, "Show all / Clear selection" button, arrow to collapse. - **"Where to find documents?" button** automatically slides closer to the collapsed legend so the gap between them stays constant. - **Big "How to use" button** (blue, top-right of the right column) opens a step-by-step tutorial for new users right on the map.