Steve, Thank you for your response. I will continue on my current path. I started on this long trek almost 30 years ago (with many breaks in the action). I always had the locations as they are in present day but once I ran the county verifier, I found the errors in that line of thinking. So I am now in the process of fixing all of my locations, adding as you suggested, notes giving the historical changes. Not an easy task but I'm making progress.
I've got 3 centuries of events in Detroit which started as a French fort, then became part of British North America, Northwest Territory, Indiana Territory and Michigan Territory before the State of Michigan was formed. Imagine straightening all of those events out! Mary -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Voght Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 3:43 AM To: LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Locations - when a village becomes a city This is a classic issue of accuracy versus clarity, and there are people on this group that fall on both sides of the divide, so you'll probably get a few different opinions on this question. My own take is that genealogy is an attempt to record events and facts in their contemporary setting (variant spellings and all), and not to second-guess details or "bring them into the present", so to speak. Thus, your proposed solution of using several location names makes the most sense to me, with the added suggestion that you use the location notes field (accessible via the Master Location List) to provide some of the historical detail that you've mentioned here about Tonawanda and North Tonawanda. The downside to this solution is that it can be difficult to locate old records based on the location, because although a person might have died in Wheatfield in 1865, you'll need to know that the records are now located in the City of North Tonawanda. Thus you will need to be careful about adding notes with such details regarding the current setting of locations that no longer exist or have changed names (and don't even get me started on the added complication of there also being a Town of Tonawanda!) The converse argument suggests that you stick with modern names for events regardless of the time when they occurred, which can make things somewhat easier to read through (thus it reads that the person lived in NT for their entire life, versus jumping around to various location names which at first glance can make it seem like they moved, even though it was merely the civil boundaries that moved.) Taking this route can lead to complications down the road when someone realizes that there was no such location as North Tonawanda in 1855, and questions the accuracy of your data. Best of luck, Steve On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:29 PM, M. Brenzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I guess that the "List Posting Error Notification" was true for me. I > somehow was unsubscribed from the list. I have received no messages for > days. I sent this message to the list on Saturday and when I didn't get it > back, I realized that I hadn't received messages in awhile. > > ----------------------------------- > > Just wondering whether others have encountered something like this and if > so, how they've handled it - > > The city in which I live became a city in 1897. Prior to that, it was a > village. Would you list it once without the title of village or city, add > it to all events and facts that occurred there regardless of when in its > history and add location notes giving the dates in which the transition took > place? > > Prior to being a village, it was part of a neighboring town. This occurred > when it split from other wards of another village. And to further > complicate things, the 3 other wards were in a different county across the > Erie Canal! > > Here are the details - > > 1854 - Village of Tonawanda formed with 3 wards in Erie County (which later > became City of Tonawanda) and 1 ward in Niagara County > 1857 - ward in Niagara County split from village and became part of Town of > Wheatfield > 1865 - Village of North Tonawanda formed > 1897 - City of North Tonawanda established > > I was thinking of having the following locations: > > Tonawanda, Erie County, New York, USA (for all events that occurred in the 3 > wards of the village and in the future City of Tonawanda) Tonawanda, Niagara > County, New York, USA (for those events in the 1 ward of the village between > 1854 and 1857) Wheatfield, Niagara County, New York, USA (for those events > between 1857 and 1865) North Tonawanda, Niagara County, New York, USA (for > everything since 1865) > > Does this make sense? > > Thanks! > > Mary *** Holiday discounts on Legacy 7.0, add-ons, books, and more. 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