"West Virginia" location errors

Question

Of all the nitpicking of locations from the Data Doctors, one is routinely omitted: West Virginia. This state did not exist before 1861, yet the autofiller regularly suggests it as a location and suggestions for correcting the error are not made.

Comments

As a data doctor, West Virginia is truly one of my thorns.  Also, anything in Georgia before 1733 (and counties in Georgia before 1777).  The auto-location information is provided by FamilySearch.org and is not a function of Data Doctors or of the countless volunteers at WikiTree.

Ales can only do so much, so state suggestions are not made unless a misspelling is caught.

Thank you for fixing those errors whenever you find them.  I usually add === Notes === to the bio and state what the original information was and what I'm currently using when I run across those West Virginia problems.

Answer 1

The Data Doctors Project Spreadsheet has the definitive source for state dates.  We are in the process of adding documentation to the project.

Please use the US state locations by dates listed in the United States Historical Place Names.

This also is the source for the US too early suggestions.

 Canada Historical Places are here.

We will add the info to the pages on Help and others as well.

West Virginia is near and dear - my dad and several generations are from there [Virginia before 1863 ].

Please contact me directly if you need anything else or have other suggestions for the Data Doctors Project and locations.

There are suggestion reports for states done weekly already.  Let me know if you want to see them for West Virginia and/or Georgia.

Comments

That US spreadsheet is like gold!  I use it often.

I'm going to contact Steven T about two Canadian historical places as we use different locations (that are documented) when working in the early time periods (for the Acadian project).

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Great, and please copy me - there are some other North American pages that can/should be included as well - please email me and I can update when I get back from a grocery run - wish me luck - there was no toilet paper or paper towels a few days ago.

Stay safe!

Answer 2

"West Virginia officially became a state in 1863." Page 375 of Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920 by William Thorndale and William Dollarhide

Comments

West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863.

Answer 3

The Suggestions about being too early for US, I think, are only checking for July 1776. I don't think those are checking for individual state entry dates.

Remember that the Suggested locations when editing a profile comes from family search. Sometimes it does seem to have a date (1863- ) after the location with United States, but other times, there is no date shown with United States in that list.

Comments

That's not consistent