If Only Geographic Borders Didn't Change!

It certainly makes it easier to do genealogy if your family lived in the same place for hundreds of years, doesn’t it? Well, maybe. The reality is that over time, borders are always changing. As America became more settled by non-native people, the borders of cities, counties, colonies, and then states were forever shifting. In Europe, centuries of disputes over who ruled what and where meant that stability was the exception and not the norm. What do movable boundaries mean for those of us trying to research our families?

First and foremost, understanding where our ancestors lived means learning about the history of their surroundings. Since we always want to start our genealogy with American records, we need to look at the formation of cities and counties as the colonies expanded and states emerged. Even if Great-Grandfather’s farm stayed in one place, over time, he may have been living in two different counties. And if the courthouse in a third county was closer, he may have conducted some business there as well. If he lived in St. Louis prior to 1876, he was a city resident. But if his home or farmland was outside of the new city’s borders, starting in 1877, he lived in St. Louis County.

For a bit of perspective, here is St. Louis County in 1857, showing the city and county all as one unit with basically the Mississippi, Missouri, and Meramec Rivers as natural borders.

Waagner, Gustavus. New topographical map of Saint Louis, Missouri. St, Louis, Mo.: Schaerff & Bro, 1857. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/2012593041/.

Divisions and redivisions were not unique to St. Louis. Look at map after map of developing states and see how county borders shifted over time. As an example, let’s look at Kentucky, a state from which many Missourians had ancestors. 

• In 1776, all of present-day Kentucky was still a single county belonging to Virginia. 
• Just a few years later, in 1780, the county of Virginia was divided into Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln Counties, still part of Virginia. 
• During the next few years, Nelson County was formed from Jefferson; Bourbon and Woodford from Fayette; Madison and Mercer from Lincoln, and Bourbon was further divided into Mason. 
• All of this occurred before Kentucky separated from Virginia and became a state in 1792.

 (For an interactive map to see the “History of County Formations in Kentucky, 1776–1939,” go to https://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/countyformations/kentuckyformationmaps.html)

Europe was even more complicated. We look at modern-day maps and say our ancestors came from Germany, Italy, or any of the countries in Eastern Europe often without a thought about the history of those regions. If your people came to the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century or earlier, many countries as we know them did not exist. Places like Alsace-Lorraine bounced back and forth between France and Germany; Ireland was just one country, and then it was two. German and Italian states were islands of warring factions led by kings, clans, or dictators constantly fighting for territory. There was no unified Germany until 1871; Italy did not unify until 1861, and the central part of Europe was constantly in flux. 

Poor Poland!

Did you have an ancestor from Poland? People from parts of Austria, Germany, and Russia often referred to themselves as Polish, and, depending on the time period, there was no Poland at all. Poland’s history is a convoluted one of power struggles. 

• By the mid-sixteenth century, Poland was a tribal nation known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with a huge amount of land stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east all the way to the Ural Mountains in the west. However, it was fractured politically, and by the eighteenth century, all that in-fighting led to no central government. 
• Countries surrounding Poland began the task of dividing it into sections, and in 1772, 1793, and 1795, it was partitioned. Northern and western Poland went to Prussia, southern Poland to Austria, and eastern Poland to Russia. 
• In 1815, after Napoleon was defeated, the central region was returned to Poland. Warsaw was the capital, and it was called the Congress Kingdom of Poland. 
• However, the emperor of Russia was made king, and after enough unrest and uprisings by the Polish people for decades, Russia just incorporated Congress Poland into Russia in 1874. 
• There was only Russia-Poland until World War I, when Poland achieved independence, but that only lasted until 1939, when Hitler invaded, and Poland belonged to Germany again. After the war, it was given to Russia, and it remained under Russian domination well into the twentieth century. 

(View an interactive map of changing Polish borders at Brilliant Maps: Making Sense of the World, One Map at a Time, https://brilliantmaps.com/poland-territory/)

Research Tips

All of these changing borders reinforce the need for flexibility as you research:

• Remember that a person can be from more than one place, and the records for that person may be scattered. 
• If an ancestor said he was from a particular location, be sure to look at the specifics of that location at the time your ancestor was living there.
• Research all of the surrounding areas, especially if that means other states or countries, again, depending on the time period.
• If you can’t find people in the courthouse or archives of where you think they lived, spread your net more widely.
• Finally, records are supposed to stay in the location where they originated, so start there. However, the reality is that records are sometimes moved. Again, be flexible, and search everywhere!