Ernie made a good point about the fact that modern boundaries have not always been so. However, the list he posted about Virginia is not correct. It looks like something made up by some Virginia "boosters", rather than by anybody serious. I have seen this same list elsewhere, but it does not become true simply by frequent repetition. (It goes without saying that the original Virginia colony charter was worded so grandly and vaguely that it could be interpreted as including all of North America, but that has nothing to do with practical matters, such as actual settlements.) Here are some simple facts that put the list into perspective: The Proclamation of 1763 cut off *all* the colonies at the crest of the mountains and forbade any settlements to the west. This was one of the many provocations that eventually led to the American Revolution, but, until 1776, it was most assuredly the "law". During the war, such questions were obviously pushed into the background for the most part, but Virginia and all the other states ceded their claims to lands in the west to the Federal government after the war was over. As we all learned in elementary school, the effective administration of the Northwest Territory (i.e., the land north of the Ohio River) was set up by an ordinance of the Confederation Congress in 1787 or so. Therefore, it should be obvious that no part of Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio was ever legally or even practically part of Virginia (aside from the original vague claim to the entire continent). It is equally clear that Daniel Boone's 1775 settlement in Kentucky was illegal at the time, but it may be said to have put Kentucky into Virginia as a practical matter, so that one item on the list is more-or-less true. As for Maryland and Pennsylvania, I think you will readily appreciate that disputed boundaries are seldom settled at the extreme claims of one side or the other (and in this case there were *three* overlapping claims). Pennsylvania claimed all of the land south to a line running east-west approximately where Washington is now; Maryland claimed everything between the Patomac and an east-west line a little bit north of Philadelphia (and opening out into what is now West Virginia because the Patomac bends in the mountains); Virginia claimed everything in sight. These claims were all unrealistic and shouldn't be taken very seriously in view of the actual settlements that were made. The current lines were drawn by arbitration *before* the Revolution (the Patomac River makes a very convenient southern boundary for Maryland, and the famous Mason-Dixon line was surveyed in 1767 for the northern and eastern boundaries). Thus, the West Virginia item in the list is also true. That leaves North Carolina and Tennessee. I guess there must have been another boundary dispute on that side, but I doubt if it amounted to more than a few miles one way or the other. All that being said, there still remains the practical matter of how to interpret the place of birth entered in documents like the US census from 1850 on. Very often, if the family had moved around a lot when the person in question was young, he/she would have no idea where his/her own birth took place. If, for example, the parents came originally from Virginia, the child might wind up thinking of that place as his/her birthplace, even if it was not true, and the same goes for other places of origin, such as Rhode Island or Massachusetts (to mention a popular center of Carpenter settlement). John Chandler