Can we settle on the place name for Ninety-Six District in South Carolina?

Question

Ninety-Six District in South Carolina encompassed Newberry and other towns and the place name was in use for approximately 30 years. The name is not a number as in the 96th District, it is a specific place name. When looking at the pick list to use for this place, WikiTree's dataset source offers far too many (and incorrect) choices. Is this something on which we might make a correction to the offered choices?

For example, on Insco-223 I selected "Newberry District, District 96, South Carolina, United States" which local historians bridle at because the name is Ninety-Six District and not a numeral. Depending on what you start entering in the location box, you'll get quite a number of variations. I suppose some of these options depend on how specific within Ninety-Six you are getting.

To quote Wikipedia (not that that's my go-to source), "Ninety-Six District (not "96th") is a former judicial district in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It existed as a district from July 29, 1769 to December 31, 1799. The court house and jail for Ninety-Six District were in Ninety Six, South Carolina."

The misuse of this name trips up seasoned as well as amateur genealogists and leaves many people wondering where they should be looking for people. Can WikiTree help by eliminating improper uses?  

Comments

There is no obligation to follow the location suggestions, which come from FamilySearch. See this link. WikiTree does not have direct control over them, though FamilySearch provides a way to suggest a new place. If a proposal to add Ninety-Six District is made there, perhaps a change will follow.

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Ian Beacall might be able to.engineer a revision to the drop-down that appears to users of the WikiTree Browser Extension.

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Good idea, Ellen, I'd forgotten. T: you can request this at

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1594957/you-want-fix-any-problems-with-locations-location-dropdowns

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What convention would be best to ask FamilySearch to consider? Something like Newberry, Ninety-Six District, South Carolina? That would be in keeping with the later convention of city, county, state.

In this particular case, there may always be some confusion as while the district existed as a legal entity for only 30 years (roughly during the transition from colony to statehood). the use of the term is found in later documents.

Answer 1

I have a lot of ancestors from the area and have visited Ninety-Six several times.  I would have to look at dates. My understanding is that Ninety-Six District was originally a large area that covered the area of several current counties.   It later was divided into Edgefield District and I can't remember the other .  As populations increased it was divided and counties created.   My point is that if you really want to be correct in naming areas someone would need to do a lot of research.

I think I read somewhere that the name came from the number of streams that had to be crossed.

Ninety-Six is now a nice little South Carolina town near Lake Greenwood.

Cherry

Answer 2

Anyone can edit Wikipedia tomake corrections.

Comments

The error is at FamilySearch, not Wikipedia.

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Sorry, I must have misread your comment.  I thought you said the error was on Wikipedia and that's why I gave the answer I did.

Joe Morgan  Piedmont IK