What to call a place in yet-to-be-settled North America when we don't the convention of those living there then?

Question

The profile linked to is an example of a person born prior to European settlement of what later became Virginia. Wikitree says to use their convention not ours, but what do we do when we don't know what their convention WAS?

As of this writing, I have used "Powhatan Nation (Virginia)" as his birth place. But I know this will generate  db_error due to the parentheses. Another editor has suggested "present day Virginia" but this will also generate a db_error because it contains non-place words in the field.

What should we do in cases like this?

Comments

I like your first option, and just mark the 'Suggestion' as False.  No reason to try to please the Suggestion bot once you have gone beyond its parameters.

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I'm not sure about how I'd treat the situation generally without knowing the naming conventions of indigenous peoples for a certain place and time; but in this case (and perhaps with other members of the Powhatan family), would simply using Tsenacommacah be the best practice?

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Daniel, convert your comment to an answer, please, so I can upvote it and give it a star. This is great. I had no idea. I love learning something new.

Still doesn't answer the question of what to do when we don't know the answer. But at least for this profile, I now have a place name that uses their convention.

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while you were sleeping ..........

Answer 1

I'm not sure about how I'd treat the situation generally without knowing the naming conventions of indigenous peoples for a certain place and time; but in this case (and perhaps with other members of the Powhatan family), would simply using Tsenacommacah be the best practice?

Answer 2

I'm not sure the Native Americans used last names. but evidently this was a brother or half-brother of Powhatan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opchanacanough under Powhatan Chief section references his daughter and her husband.

https://www.npr.org/assets/news/2014/06/Tribal_Nations_Map_NA.pdf is a map with native names.

But I'd look for answers starting Here.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:First_Peoples

Answer 3

In the interest of using their convention, you could list their birthplace as Tsenacommacah, the Powhatan word for their own homeland.