A few months ago I sent a suggestion to Legacy for the ability to add a number of name variations for locations, instead of only a short version. I have diverse ancestry from different parts of Europe where it is very common for the same location to have been under various countries or empires through history. Genealogists are supposed to use the location name as it was at the time of the event. You also learn a little more about the lives of ancestors if you know whether they lived under the Russian and /or Austrian Empires and /or Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire etc. Geo location can distract family historians from researching the actual borders of the time, finding interesting information and factors causing ancestors to emigrate etc.
I admit however, it can get very complicated. I am the only family historian or genealogist that I know of who is “nutty” enough to attempt using accurate location names for the extremely complex territories of the German Holy Roman Empire- I think Family Search only uses locations as they were after the 1815 Congress of Vienna which made enormous changes to borders throughout Europe. You can however be rewarded with very fascinating stories e.g. I have ancestors who lived in a culturally German district which was a tiny French exclave which had been geographically located within a bigger exclave of the Duchy of Lorraine. These ancestors emigrated to a corner of “Poland” which had been taken by the Austrian Empire. They, with other German families established their own colony/settlement. This region then fell to Napoleon, becoming part of the Duchy of Warsaw. It then went to the Russian Empire (“Russian Poland”). All this in one ancestor’s lifetime! Other branches of my family tree also have fascinating stories relating to locations. Researching locations takes time so I mostly research my direct ancestors and sometimes their siblings, rather than spending time finding thousands of distant cousins which to me seems pointless and much less interesting. John
-- LegacyUserGroup mailing list [email protected] To manage your subscription and unsubscribe http://legacyusers.com/mailman/listinfo/legacyusergroup_legacyusers.com Archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
