Using Birth Records for residence Fact

Mary Kathryn87

L8PF-GQJ

https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/L8PF-GQJ

It's very hard to find records for females in 1700s. I am wondering if I could use the birth records of her children as residence>

Adrian Bruce1

I would say that you ought to omit the residence - as you say, it's difficult at that date to get definitive statements of residence and frankly, nothing is gained from it. She could, after all, have simply been passing through.

Personally, I'd rather you corrected the references to "United States", which simply didn't exist in the early 1700s. Some of her children have "British Colonial America", which I don't happen to like, but at least it makes it clear that the places were pre-Independence.

Nyx773

To be pedantic: Residence is an “event” not a fact.

I have done so on rare occasions when I was trying to sort out their movements, specifically for people who immigrated to the U.S., then traveled back to the old country - and had children before, during, and/or after that travel.

In all instances, I placed in the “reason” section of the Residence, I made a note of my suppositions, such as “assuming she permanently resided at the same location as the birth of her daughter Anna”

Yes, caution is required. I have found 2 instances in which the woman lived her entire life (after immigration) in one small town in Pennsylvania, but had a middle child born elsewhere - Italy for one and Detroit for the other. In the latter example, I made a collaborate note on the child’s profile something like: “mother was probably visiting half-brother Mike at the time”

Adrian Bruce1

@Nyx773 - yes, your assumptions note would be a good way of going about it, and actually matches more closely what I would do on my own PC where only I can update things.

Incidentally, as far as residence being an event not a fact, this is one aspect where different systems use different terminology - FamilySearch FamilyTree feels to me to be a bit out of the ordinary describing residence and occupation (etc) as events but hey, it's only a name!