Thursday, December 5, 2019

Reader Suggestion: Pre-USA

Here is a Reader's Suggestion:
Suggested use of British Colony vs United States when the USA did not exist
Thanks Lee for that suggestion.
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Copyright © 2019 by Cousin Russ

6 comments:

  1. Great idea. Some of my grandson's relatives came to New Amsterdam while it was still under Dutch ownership (before the Brits took it over and called it "New York."

    What's the proper place name for that time period (I just use "New Amsterdam")?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dick,

      I usually look to a Wiki to determine the Place Name for that specific time, for the place name, but I want to use the Map feature, so I double enter the place name.

      Russ

      Delete
  2. For over one year I use the suffix of "British Colonial America" for all Places where the dates are before 1776.

    Apparently there is a big technical issue in the Ancestry/FTM software interface for Geographical places that Ancestry/FTM they imported directly from the Find A Grave database into Ancestry.com database. Every since the new Find A Grave software has been released, many geographical place names have started showing up in Ancestry.com/FTM with the suffix of "United States of America" or "United States". This requires a lot of unnecessary editing for FTM users. The Find A Grave software programmers have a conversion routine in their software that converts the suffix of "United States of America" or "United States" and only displays a suffix of "USA" from their database file for their graphics user interface displays. Ancestry.com/FTM also needs to incorporate this software conversion coding so that all places have the recognized standard suffix of "USA" after 1776 and "British Colonial America" before 1776.

    Thank you, Dennis York, dryork2@airmail.net

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dennis,

      Please read my Blog Post on this very issue.

      https://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2016/12/why-i-double-enter-historic-place-names.html

      I aways double enter my historic place names.

      Since you brought up Find A Grave, I do NOT put a Historic Place Name for a Cemetery, or a place name from Find A Grave.

      I RESOLVE my Current Place Names, using the Resolve Place Name feature, as I want that current place name "on the map". The Resolve Place Name feature will change United States to USA for you.

      The software conversion already exists.

      Russ

      Delete
  3. I use a multi-tiered approach for pre-USA locations. I first sater with city and county. I use the information which aligns with the time of the fact. I then look at the next higher giovermental authority. As an example, up until 1686, you had Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony. From 1686-1691, it was Dominoin of Ne2w England. From 1691-1776, it was Province of Massachusetts. The 1776-1779 Massachusetts Bay in New England. When the USA was established, it became Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Up to 1776, it was all British America.
    This sometime3s seems confusing but aligning the fact timewise to the right location makes it easier to find sources.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PZ,

      Please look at my blog post about Historical Place Names.

      Russ

      Delete

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