[APG Public List] APGPublicList Digest, Vol 12, Issue 38

[Ray Beere Johnson II]

     Sorry, Larry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you here. Even if you establish the "actual physical location", it may be meaningless.
     Case in point? I have seen multiple instances in New England where the actual physical location was in one town, but where an event was recorded in a neighbouring town - because the families in question happened to find it more convenient to travel there. Often, this seems to have been a "cultural" issue, not necessarily a geographic one.
     I even found one specific event for a surname connected with my family recorded with records for another _county_. Why? Simply because a minister for a certain town performed the wedding ceremony in another town miles away - and the town clerk saw fit to record the event "their" minister oversaw.
     In other words, in at least some cases, actual physical location is highly misleading in research - _if_ the researcher is unwary enough to get too hung up on that point.
                             Ray Beere Johnson II

--- On Mon, 11/1/10, L. Boswell <laboswell at rogers.com> wrote:

> Sorry, maybe I'm missing something here, but I wouldn't say the 
> physical location is less important than the artificial boundaries. 
> How do you know which boundaries apply if you haven't established the 
> actual physical location first (or early on in the research process)?