Location - Place Name List?

Question

I just got a slough of new errors in the error report resulting from place names, mostly that "United States" is inappropriate based on date. Is there a list for the US of what is the appropriate place name? Are states prior to admission supposed to be, e.g,, "Iowa Territory"?

Comments

Iowa was only "Iowa Territory" for eight years from 1838 - 1846.  There's more on Wikipedia in this article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Territory

I have a bookmark for Wikipedia for the histories of the names of locations.

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In most cases, it's just fine to simply remove the "USA" or "United States", and leave names like "Iowa." Some people around here have suggested that people should carefully research political geography and use complete official names from the specific year of the event (although I haven't yet heard anyone seriously suggest using "Territory South of the River Ohio" or "Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations"), but when we are swimming against a tsunami of bad location data from Ancestry gedcoms (and other sources), that seems like an unnecessary nicety.

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>> but when we are swimming against a tsunami of bad location data

sentence of truth and then moving those data to a system with no location validation feels like asking for problems.---

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I nearly spat my coffee out.;-) It's OK to remove US or USA ? I fully appreciate that place locations change over time and there is an discussions on how to locate. Ancient or Modern? But please at least indicate a country in some form. The time wasted trying to work out the location of a profile is bad enough without removing clues! A huge amount of "The Americas" place names derive from the European heritage. I use "The Americas" to include your neighbours as the same happens in the Spanish speaking countries. A country is a must in whatever form. It is missing far to often.

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The location of USA or United States should not be used for events that occurred before the United States existed.

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Please do not speak about location as it is one thing

Location is:

1. The location name when the event to place = the historical name
2. The physical location of the place that still is valid today GPS coordinates
3. The name of the physical location today

Trying to simplify it and just use one name for everything will fail...

Doing good genealogy you document at least all three if they differ... 

Answer 1

This is a very well discussed topic with very little consensus. The guide says to use the names they used at the time of the profile, this would help with finding records. Others would prefer us to use current location names so that we may search the locations today, but that can cause problems as well. As an example in 1803 when Ohio became a State there was a Painesville. The location has not moved but it was part of Geauga County until 1840 when it became the county seat for the newly formed Lake County. That means if you were searching for records of people from Painesville prior to 1840 they would be located in a different county. I always try to be as specific as possible and use the location names for the date. This is a lot more research but the data will be more accurate.

Comments

Dale, that's why I try to list what the current place name is also; e.g.: "Harrison County, Virginia (now Ritchie County, West Virginia), United States". Harrison County still exists, but in 1800 it was MUCH larger -- it contributed territory to seven other counties over the years as boundaries shifted. It's a bit wordy, but it's the most accurate way to describe a location. Old maps are one of a genealogist's best friends...

Answer 2

Those got published again, I allready removed them. Until there is a clear way to correct those, this error is hidden.

Answer 3

Thanks for the guidance.