Here is a screenshot of basic life facts on one of the pioneers in Appalachia, John Van Bibber, who was tied by marriage to members of the Boone family. The info is from widely-cirulated databases such as FamilySearch and Ancestry.

Does this look “right” to you? It shouldn’t!

This is an example of what I call sloppy history. It violates standards for genealogical research that require entries of events in their historical context. Unfortunately this minimal bio sketch contains several errors, common to most publicly-available databases.

Let’s take a look at those errors…

Birth

• Pike County, KY was established in 1821
• Kentucky did not exist as a state until 1792; prior to that year it was a part of Virginia
• The United States was not known as such until mid-1777, when the Continental Congress formalized that name (although I won’t quibble and will settle for its use after 4 July 1776); before that date it was part of British (Colonial) America

Death

• West Virginia did not become a state until 20 June 1863
• Mason County was in 1852 a county of Virginia

Is this just a matter of nitpicking? Absolutely not! While physical locations do not change — barring earthquakes, etc. — the political and governmental boundaries do change. Some locations in my native Eastern Kentucky have at various dates been a part of two states and seven counties. That complicates the process of searching for records of events in their contemporaneous context.

Currently I am using a tedious process to search simply for and records that indicate events occurring in the “United States” prior to 4 July 1776 and changing the places to British America and the correct antecedent colony and county. There are thousands of these in my database, each requiring a manual review — there is no reliable programming trick to do the job.

I raise this issue because it is a common form of bad practice. If we wish to share genealogical information in a uniform, accurate fashion, we need to adjust our old habits. And we might gain some valuable lessons in geographical history along the way.

Did you know… That there were no North Carolina or South Carolina colonies before 1729? Check out this Wiki link for Carolina Province!