Our aim here in Journeys of Life is to indicate the place of birth as accurately as possible and by so doing give some of the historical context at a glance. Sometimes Wikipedia suggests the modern version of the area or country name, so it can be a challenge to find out under whose rule the city or area actually was at the time of birth. Because that is what we want to give here - the place of birth as it was known at the time of birth.

European births are a real challenge since rulership of many towns, areas and countries have changed so many times throughout history. Even the names of cities may have changed as the rulership changed not only from one country to another, but from one language to another. So you may find some inaccuracies in this site as well when it comes to naming the country one was born in, sorry about that.

In the case of American, or more precisely, U.S. births, the lists are a lot simpler. It is mainly either British America, or after the independence, the United States of America.

Every year file after 1787 has as least one link to the JOL post U.S. State Two Letter Abbreviations where you can easily see what each short form stands for (and find some neat info on each state too!). Until 1959 - when Alaska and Hawaii were the last ones to join the union - you may of course still see something else than the abbreviation behind the town or city.

In case of people born before the independence the place of birth is mostly the province or colony, followed by British America.

For Canadian and Australian births, abbreviations are also in use for the different states, territories or provinces. Birth years in New France, Dominion of Canada, and the current Canada (part of the Commonwealth) are all observed.

This blog is Western oriented, and does not cover nearly as fully any Eastern or Asian country, particulaly the historical births of Asiatic people. Still, just the same caution is taken in order to indicate the place of birth as accurately as possible.

Finally, if there is no discrepancy between the person and the country they were born in, the nationality of the person is omitted. There will be a separate article on nationalities further down the road. That is to say, what we actually mean with roots, origins, ethnicities, nationalities and citizenships.

Updated 4.4.2021