This is a subject that comes up every now and then so I thought I'd re-ask it again just to see what the current opinion seems to be. It concerns location names that have changed since a genealogical event has occurred.
For example, a certain person was born in Richland County, Ohio in 1845. The US Census of 1850 now shows the family living in Ashland County. Did the family move? No, the boundaries were redrawn. The exact spot where the person was born is no longer called Richland County, but rather Ashland County. In some cases, I've got families living on the same exact farms and nothing has changed other than time and the location name. So the question becomes, how do you show his birth location: the old name or the new name? If you choose the old name for his birth location, the collective data and any generated reports make it seem as if the family moved. And in a few isolated cases, those location names may no longer exist. If you use the new name, Legacy complains at the time of entry that the county did not exist at the time and was not formed until 1846 (or whatever year). It's kind of a "gentle warning" which you can easily dismiss and then everything would seem right in the universe. I just had a similar situation come up in which an individual was born in Fargo, Dakota Territory (before it was a state), but sure enough, all later census, military, and marriage records show his birth location as Fargo, North Dakota. I'm trying to be a purist and use the original location names but judging from what I'm seeing on other people's genealogical reports, I get the feeling that I'm swimming upstream on this. Inquiring Minds Want to Know Brian Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
