Original Message: Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 10:54 AM Subject: [GERMANNA] What county is my town in Sandy, if you go to www.familysearch.org -- library catalog--place search (succeeding pages) and put the name of your town in the PLACE search and the state in the PART OF search, it will give you a county for your town.. Marilyn <SNIP> Marilyn, You have a very good suggestion for many records, BUT (and don't you hate qualifiers?), we're going to have to be careful that we don't corrupt our own research. So many counties have divided over the years that one farm may have been in more than one county. The land didn't move, but the boundaries sure did. One example of that is Independence, KY. My ancestors lived there in the early 1800's when it was in Campbell County. Later my ancestors still lived on that same farm when it was Kenton County. (Kenton County was formed in 1840.) So we have to be very careful when trying to change locations. We want to be consistent but we also want to be accurate. Jean

At Monday 26-01-09 03:57 PM, Larry Hallauer wrote: *********START OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT********* >Original Message: Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 10:54 AM >Subject: [GERMANNA] What county is my town in > Sandy, if you go to www.familysearch.org -- library >catalog--place search (succeeding pages) and put the name of your town in >the PLACE search and the state in the PART OF search, it will give you a >county for your town.. Marilyn <SNIP> > >Marilyn, > You have a very good suggestion for many records, BUT (and don't you >hate qualifiers?), we're going to have to be careful that we don't corrupt >our own research. So many counties have divided over the years that one >farm may have been in more than one county. The land didn't move, but the >boundaries sure did. One example of that is Independence, KY. My ancestors >lived there in the early 1800's when it was in Campbell County. Later my >ancestors still lived on that same farm when it was Kenton County. (Kenton >County was formed in 1840.) > So we have to be very careful when trying to change locations. We want >to be consistent but we also want to be accurate. >Jean **********END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE TEXT*********** Hello Jean, Boy, do I agree with you! I've been working on several families that came out of southern VA and were there during the formation of several counties from the original Brunswick Co. Researchers' data- bases are all over the place with exactly which county births, marriages, and deaths occurred. Here's the history of Brunswick and later counties: Brunswick-formed from Prince George-1732 Lunenburg-formed from Brunswick-1746 Halifax -formed from Lunenburg-1752 Bedford-formed from Lunenburg-1754 Pittsylvania-formed from Halifax-1767 Henry-formed from Pittsylvania-1777 Patrick-formed from Henry-1791 Now, the reason I mention this is that just about all the people in these families were born in what is now Pittsylvania, BUT were born BEFORE 1767. Most researchers have them entered into their databases with a Pittsylvania birthplace, when some were born in the then Halifax Co., some were born in the then Lunen- burg Co., and some were born in the then Brunswick Co. I've always advocated that one should always enter a person's birth, marriage, death, etc. as the county that the area was in AT THAT TIME. This really helps researchers who might travel to that area to do look in records at a courthouse. If a person were born in 1735, for example, in an area that is now in Pittsylvania, a researcher might travel to the courthouse in Chatham, the county seat, and find no birth records for the person there and just give up, thinking there were no records. But, the records just might be in Lawrenceville, the county seat of Brunswick Co. So, in my database a birth place for John DOE, born in 1735, would look like this: , Brunswick Co., VA (Brunswick Co.-1732; Lunenburg Co.-1476; Halifax Co.-1752; Pittsylvania Co.-1767) As to finding out in which county a town is located, as I have already mentioned, my genealogy program has a "Place Finder", where I can type in the name of the town and state and the program pops up showing the county. Likewise, I can type in the name of the county and state and see a list of all the towns located there. The program works quite well 99.99% of the time. The only time I have problems is when a person has an event place that is "historical" and no longer used. Then I usually have to do a Google search for the town and find out in which county it was located for the time in question, and try to find out what town is located there now. For those whose genealogy database program has no "Place Finder", good old Wikipedia is a quick and easy way to find out where a town is located. Just type in the town and state and read the info, which will give the county's name. And, sometimes, Wikipedia will also allow you to enter the name of a "historical" town and give information on where it was located and the area's history. Regards, Sarge