How a record enters the map
An academic source or archive is the first evidence, followed by local association and family review. Historic name, current administrative name, coordinates, migration period and source date are stored separately. Private addresses of living people are not published.
How to tell settlement history
Do not reduce a village to an ethnic label. Read livelihood, language retention or loss, weddings, food, cemeteries, neighbours and generational change together. Do not substitute Chechen, Circassian, Abaza or other Caucasian identities for one another.
How a settlement record is verified
A village or neighbourhood is never added to the map from an internet list alone. Scholarship or an archive provides the first evidence; historical name, current administrative name, district, coordinates, migration period and source date are stored separately. Naming is then compared with local institutions, associations or more than one family account. Chechen, Circassian, Abaza and other Caucasian identities are not substituted for one another, and private addresses or sensitive family details are not published. An uncertain record remains a research note rather than a definitive pin.
