Carol: I've tackled the same problems as you describe and have come up with two different solutions. For European locations, especially in Germany, I list the location as it's shown on the source document and for country I use "now Germany." In the past I've spent literally weeks trying to figure out where, say, Aichau was in 1722. Then I realized it just didn't matter to that degree. Although "Germany" didn't exist until much later, it's more meaningful to today's readers than some of the alternatives.
I dislike the look of what one lister called "spurious commas" and never use "USA" prior to 1776 (although one could argue that the date should actually be 1781 or 1783 since *declaring* and actually *winning* are two different things, but that's beside the point). For Colonial locations I use the place name as it was at the time of the event and the format City (if known), County (if it existed at the time), and the full name of the colony such as Massachusetts Bay Colony for the country. (Wikipedia is handy for finding these.) If you're doing a lot of early Colonial research, AniMap is worth it's weight in gold although the maps don't start until 1643. Here again, Wikipedia can be a helpful alternative. (This format will produce some errors if/when you run an error report, but you can always turn off the flag for that particular record.) Hope this answers your questions or at least gives you some ideas to consider. Kirsten -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of familyjesse Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 2:10 PM To: LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Sources etc Hello, I'm another newbie to the list and I am doing the same thing... correcting and rearranging sources. In very old records I get errors if I put the counties in because the counties did not exist until a later date. I am not sure whether I should omit the county and use the two commas "Dorchester, , Massachussetts" instead of "Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachussets"? I also have a problem with some colonial areas which were part of one state and then became part of another state later. Also, I can't very well put, "USA" before there was a USA? Can anyone suggest what I should do with these? Related to that is the corrected locations I get on my German and Netherlands families when I ask for Legacy help in getting the locations correct. Legacy always leaves the county blank. Should I assume that the county that city is in now is different from what it was then? Should I fill in the county if I know it? In some cases I know the county or the document specifies but Legacy still leaves it blank. In some cases it is different: Mecklenburg-Schwerin vs. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. How do I know what is correct then as opposed to correct now and shouldn't I note the change under details when that differs? Thank you, Carol Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
