Colony of OR Province of State, North America

Question

Which would be better for the Vital statistic dates prior to the revolution?

 

Colony of OR Province of State, North America

 

where I have state obviously the state name would go

Answer 1

I like the way Wikipedia shows it. Take a look at this profile for Oliver Ellsworth --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Ellsworth

Windsor, Connecticut, Thirteen Colonies, British Empire.

Answer 2

A very extensive discussion on your question is in this thread, if I linked correctly:

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/21400/how-handle-pre-revolution-place-names-in-america

Comments

I just read most of that thread.  I saw a comment in there saying that. after becoming a state, Massachusetts is properly named "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts".

That reminded me of something - there are 4 states that are technically NOT states - they are commonwealths.  Three of them are Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and I don't remember the fourth one.

I never did manage to figure out the difference between a state and a commonwealth, but I believe there are differences.  I don't know how this impacts anything we do here, though.  I just wanted to point it out and leave it to far better minds than mine to decide what, if anything, to do about it.

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Kentucky