Then or Now: How Do You Record Places?

[Thomas Wetmore]

When you record the places where your ancestors lived, do you use the names as they were at the time, or do you use the names as they are today? I prefer the first approach, but it takes study and research to figure it out; in many cases I give up and use modern names.

Two of my Wetmore ancestors James Wetmore and son John were exiled to the mouth of the Saint John River at Saint John, New Brunswick, in October 1783, as Revolutionary War loyalists. At the time, however, Saint John did not exist, nor did New Brunswick; the area was in the Province of Nova Scotia. Canada would not exist for nearly a century. In 1784 the loyalists petitioned the British government for their own province and the Province of New Brunswick was separated from Nova Scotia. My great great great grandfather, Daniel Wetmore, son of John, was born in New Brunswick in 1791. Would you record this as New Brunswick, United Kingdom, as it was at the time, or as New Brunswick, Canada?

In the United States county borders were in states of flux as land areas were settled. There are web sites devoted to showing those changes. Finding the actual county a place was in at a specific date is not an easy task. Is this a worry for you?

Similar situations exist everywhere. A great thing about genealogy is how it forces us to learn the histories of places our ancestors lived.

Tom Wetmore

[Stephen Woodbridge]

I try to keep both locations. I’ve used RootsMagic and they are pretty good at supporting this. I’ve also added lat-lon locations if I can correctly map the location to a specific point on a map. If you save the now location you should also save the date of “now” as it might change again in the future. This is especially true for areas in conflict zones.

I don’t have it in front of me but does Gedcom 5.5 or 5.5.5 have a map location tag?

Steve W

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 25, 2024, at 11:05 PM, Thomas Wetmore <ttwet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When you record the places where your ancestors lived, do you use the names as they were at the time, or do you use the names as they are today? I prefer the first approach, but it takes study and research to figure it out; in many cases I give up and use modern names.

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[paul...@gmail.com]

In the beginning was the Toponym.

Administration and jurisdiction, contact, trade, conflict, conquest (and Lord knows what else) begat parallel reference frames of "nyms". Even in different languages, different writing systems. Each reference frame, or context, has its own validity and usefulness.

Precision/definiteness is another factor to deal with, including extraterritorial such as "at sea".

Any decent recording system needs to accommodate multiple nyms. "Place" is a misleadingly specific term, perhaps "localiser" would be better?

Localisers come in a variety of classes - to be defined! Time-dependent mappings between them would be a valuable aid, but ridiculously complex for individuals to compile. Great project for a WikiMapping.

"United Kingdom" in your example only made sense as a jurisdiction, for a time, and disputed for a time ;).

Let's not ignore the localiser's 4th dimension with its own variety of reference frames. Regnal year reckoning persists even today in our legal system, never mind the crazy number of calendars in different cultures.

[Marshall Lake]

> Thomas Wetmore <ttwet...@gmail.com>: Oct 25 11:05PM -0400

>
> When you record the places where your ancestors lived, do you use the
> names as they were at the time, or do you use the names as they are
> today? I prefer the first approach, but it takes study and research to
> figure it out; in many cases I give up and use modern names.

Recording location/place is something that is on my mind from time to time
regarding the software I'm developing. I have not yet made any
determinations and I'm not yet coding for this but I think allowing for
multiple location recordations is the way to go. Ideally, I think somehow
a "genealogy" of the location should be easily accessible by the user.

I feel the most important reference is whatever the location is at the
time of the event. Mostly because that may be the where any records
surrounding the event are located/stored. But also because that is the
most correct location reference (to me anyway). The present-day location
reference is also important for I think it helps the user more readily
visualize the location.

Dealing with time-of-the-event locations and a "genealogy" of locations
can be challenging. For USA territory/state/county changes, The Newberry
Library (https://digital.newberry.org/ahcb/downloads/united_states.html)
may be a good start.


--
Marshall Lake -- marsha...@gmail.com -- http://www.mlake.net