Getting the Place Right

When recording the places where your ancestors lived, make sure you are accurate for the period. In other words, record the county or other locale as it was when your ancestor lived there.

For example, my Faucett ancestors settled in Warren Co., Ohio. However, when John & his family arrived about 1797/8, Warren County had yet to be created. So from the time the Faucetts settled between the  Miami Rivers until 1804, they resided in Hamilton County. I have seen a ton of entries for the Faucett kids born before 1804 listed "b. Hamilton Co."

US GenWeb's State sites all have county formation charts. Thorndale & Dollarhide's "Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920" has state/territorial maps for each census year with county boundary changes. Other sites will give you county changes as well. RootsMagic has a wonderful feature that let's you know if the place you entered was accurate. You know immediately if you have erred on state vs. territory, county change, etc. I would imagine other programs have a similar feature.

Keeping the location accurate will help you track down land, vital & other records on your ancestors. They might have lived on the same tract of land for three generations, but their records could be in 4-5 different counties! The Berkmiers settled in Green Co. in 1750. Haverford Co. is carved from Green in 1770. Hill Co. is taken from Haverford in 1820. Yellow Creek Co. is taken from Hill in 1840.

The 1st family deed & two births are found in Green Co., a handful of vital records & a deed in Haverford,  more vital records in Hill Co. & the deed where the family sells that original tract is recorded in Yellow Creek Co. [but it does say "originally Green Co."]

Get the location right! It will help you tell the family story with more accuracy.

Also make sure you get things in order. City, town or township, county, state; City, province, country & so on. Recently I've seen entries for Leiden as South Holland, Leiden, Netherlands. It should be Leiden, Soouth Holland, The Netherlands.