Place names change with time

In recent years our house numbers changed due to the Emergency 9-1-1 system and this allowed us to move without packing a dish. The move without packing also sometimes happened to our ancestors.

Throughout human history town lines and names have changed. For example some of my ancestors lived on Flying Point in North Yarmouth for years then new town lines placed them in Freeport. All this adds one more layer of difficulty for the genealogist on the hunt for his or her ancestors.

Moving town lines happened frequently in early Maine and right up to the current century. The same thing occurred with counties. Piscataquis was created from land formerly in Penobscot and Somerset counties. Not long ago England reconfigurated her counties so some English towns and their records found themselves in a neighboring county.

While all this is interesting history it can also pose problems for unwary genealogists who may be unaware of all the changes to an ancestor’s home town or county. While many county records moved to the new county seats, town records didn’t. If you aren’t aware of these changes you can miss discovering information about your family.

And, to make things more complex national borders often changed as well. Here in Maine our northern border with Canada wasn’t officially finalized until 1842.

Across the world, borders have changed through conquest, merging nations, royal marriages, and treaty settlements following wars. My husband’s German ancestral town is now in Poland. A good part of the current problems in the Middle East can be traced to the creation of new countries following World War I without the conquering powers giving thought to warring tribes or differing religious viewpoints. One stroke of the pen on a treaty set the stage for ongoing conflict in the region.

And the names of towns changed over the years. For example, you may find a record indicating your ancestor lived in Jones Plantation (now China), Eden (Bar Harbor), Townsend (Boothbay), or Lyconia (Albion). They’re obviously not on maps under their old names. How would you know where to look? Luckily, there are sources that can help you with these knotty problems.

“The Length and Breadth of Maine” by Stanley Bearce Attwood is perhaps the best known standard resource listing most of Maine’s early place names, town names that are non-existent today, and other information about the state. This handy volume has been reprinted and can be found in most libraries. The Maine Digest, published annually, is also a resource found in some libraries and can give a quick synopsis of a town’s history and former names.

There are online sites and references to changing county lines around the country. A quick Google.com search will yield a lot of answers for you and on FamilySearch.org’s Wiki you can find information and links to these topics and maps.

It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the history of your ancestral towns early in your research to avoid missing the family records you’re seeking.

Nancy Battick is a Dover-Foxcroft native who has researched genealogy for over 30 years. She is past president of the Maine Genealogical Society, author of several genealogical articles and co-transcribed the Vital Records of Dover-Foxcroft. Nancy holds a MA in History from UM and lives in DF with her husband, Jack, another avid genealogist. You can contact Nancy at nbattick@roadrunner.com.