I often record locations that have changed with the original name (so that I can find records) and the new name as: "Cowpens, Spartanburg [now Cherokee]County, South Carolina, USA" a friend of mine records similarly as: "Cowpens, Cherokee [then Spartanburg] County, SC" (in this example of the historic town of Cowpens, the modern county line splits the town) and locations which are "near" somewhere with the word "near" as: "Rocky River Baptist Church Cemetery, near Burnsville, Anson County, North Carolina, USA" this doesn't help much when sorting the location list for "Cherokee County" or "Burnsville" but does absolutely help when trying to physically find a location or record. Much depends on which location block the place is in. For "Buried" it is often more accurate to list the present location of the cemetery and not the name at the time; especially so if someone wants to visit the cemetery and must sort through county-by-county histories in order to determine that "Cherokee County South Carolina was formed in 1897 from portions of Spartanburg, York, and Union Counties. That area north and east of the Broad River was then York County while the portion of the county along the present I85 cooridor and west was Spartanburg County..." for example. While I enjoy driving through the mountains of Western North Carolina, it sure helps to start researching in the right county. Anson and Rowan Counties of North Carolina once extended indeterminably west. The sort function in the location list though will react unfavorably to this format if you sort in reverse - country, state, county, city - but it does well for reports and especially for answering those "where did you find that..." type source questions from those interested in repeating your work. The NGS example below (while great in print) would have the location reverse sort with the original county as a city. "Chester County, now Delaware County, PA." I've also started using "," when there is nothing for an entry. "North Carolina" becomes ",,North Carolina, USA" so that a reverse sort finds North Carolina as a state and my format of locations remains "city, county, state, country" for US locations. IMHO the example from NGS would record as ",Chester [now Deleware]County, Pennsylvania, USA" -- I spell out state names due the experience of reading files from folks who don't know which abbreviations to use (MA for Maine or Miss. for Missouri for example) Just my thoughts for what they are worth... CoachT -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of T. Dan Wollam Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 3:04 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Legacy 4.0 wish list Out of curiosity as to the "standard" for how to enter place names, I wrote to the National Genealogical Society to solicit their position on the subject. In reply, they advised that while there is no actual agreed "standard", nevertheless the accepted method that NGS teaches is to record information on the location as it existed when the event took place followed by the county name as it appears now. "As an example," they wrote, "people living in what is now Delaware County before 1789 were residents of Chester County, Pennsylvania. All records for those early settlers pre 1789 will be found in Chester County records, not Delaware. So we would suggest ... record information for an ancestor living in what is now Delaware County in 1750 as: Chester County, now Delaware County, PA." <snip> To unsubscribe: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
