Hi Mary, Your basic question is one I have wrestled myself. Before I go to my solution I would like to share a few thoughts with you. I rarely give input to the questions asked on the Legacy UG, but this time is one of my exceptions.
I always find it interesting to see so many individuals who have very strong opinions on so many topics. This topic is one where some individuals seem to be too lazy to do the research on colonial or territorial America and/or are too lazy to enter it into their programs. There is always an excuse about 3 place names vs. 4 place names, or everybody knows where New York or Connecticut is located, or no country existed at that time, or it facilitates sorting data, or it's something else. Keep in mind, some people outside the U.S. may use your data in the future. Not everyone is as familiar with the history of the U.S. as we are. You need to decide how detailed or accurate you want your data to be. The United States has an interesting history fra ught with many challenges regarding place names. We have had British Colonies, Territories, Indian lands, Unorganized areas, along with lands acquired from other countries like Spain, France, Russia, Mexico, and some I have likely missed. State, territory, and county lines frequently changed resulting in records being located in repositories in one state or county today that were different than at the time of the original event. E ach area brings new challenges and will cause you to rethink your own rules for place names. What I have discovered is there is no uniform position on the subj ect you inquired about, although I think there should be. For what it is worth, I believe all events should be identified with a place name as accurate as you can determine at the time of the original event. You could end up with entries that look like these examples: 3 May 1644 Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts Bay Colony , British America 10 Jul 1646 Farmington, Hartford, Connecticut Colony, British America 10 Aug 1847 Great Salt Lake Valley, , Alta California Territory, Mexico 3 Mar 1848 Great Salt lake Valley, , Unorganized Territory, United States 7 Sep 1861 Fort Bridger, Green R iver, Utah Territory, United States The bottom line is do what you think is right, ho pefully with some logic and historical basis for your choice, and not because it is easy or because research is hard. Regardless of your choice ... Good luck. Scott North West valley City, UT ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary LeClerc" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2013 1:06:27 AM Subject: [LegacyUG] Re: location names Sorry I tagged onto another thread. I'm new to the usergroup and couldn't find how to start a new thread myself (plus it's late a night--that's my excuse). I'm not suggesting changing name locations. Just the opposite. I'm constantly finding people showing a U.S. city in a county that simply didn't exist at the given date. They've either copied from someone else who did the same thing, or they have changed what the original record showed. I want to preserve the original record and be historically correct at the same time. For awhile I solved the pre/post colonial U.S. issue by simply not putting any country. But I've been recently reminded that there are people in other countries (I'm joking here.). My software very easily can go in and put either "U.S.A." or "United States" after all the locations it recognizes as being states. But that just doesn't work for pre-revolution dates and I have a lot of those. I appreciate your comment about the four fields not working for all countries. I was just inputting some English records this evening and understand what you mean. Thanks. Mary On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 1:23 AM, Ron Ferguson < [email protected] > wrote: Mary, Whilst what you say may or may not be possible for the time at which the country was a colony, please remember that the American 4 field convention does not work for much of the world. In my view it is quite wrong to change the name of a Location just to make it fit. Ron Ferguson http://www.fergys.co.uk/ From: Mary LeClerc Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2013 6:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Splitting a family group from main file: advice please I'm trying to be consistent in using a four place convention for all locations. How should early Colonial American places be shown? I try to show county names as they existed at the time of the event (and don't include "County"). Clearly it would not be correct to say "United States" nor "America". thanks, Mary L. 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