One ancestral family lived in Ohio for several years in the early 19th century before moving to Adams County, Illinois, and settling near the village of Lima. Records in Ohio do not suggest that they ever lived near Lima, Ohio, and spent their time there in a different portion of the state.

When one child in the family died in Iowa in the very early 20th century, her obituary indicated she was born in Lima, Ohio. The document was transcribed as written, but it was noted parenthetically that the reference to Lima, Ohio, was probably due to some confusion with Lima, Illinois.

Probably.

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  1. I used to teach beginning genealogy classes. One semester, a particularly enthusiastic new researcher got all but one of his brothers and sisters together to discuss their family. Everyone agreed that their father was born in Illinois. So the researcher went off to find his father’s birth certificate, but couldn’t find anything about his father’s birth. He was very discouraged and mentioned this to the sibling who had missed the family meeting. “Well, of course,” said the sibling. “Dad was born in Indiana.” The researcher somewhat skeptically changed his research to Indiana and found his father’s birth certificate right away!

    • That’s also a good reminder that just because the majority of family says one thing is true, there’s no guarantee that it is.

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