
I was processing some data for a Leander Levi Wheeler who was born 5 July 1859 and died 4 Apr 1941. These dates are confirmed by his grave marker which is available at www.findagrave.com. Another researcher reported that Leander was born in Long Creek, Macon County, Illinois but the other researcher didn't report a place of death.
There are lots of trees at ancestry.com which have data about Leander, mostly unsourced and probably copied from each other. The closest thing to real data on ancestry.com is a database called Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947. Even reading the description of this database, it's really hard to figure out where the data really came from. But mostly likely it came from indexing Illinois death certificates.
In any case, the Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947 database reports that Leander was born in Long Creek Twp, Macon County, Illinois and that he died in Long Creek Twp, Macon County, Illinois. As you can imagine, the subtle distinction between "Long Creek Twp, Macon County, Illinois" as reported by llinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947 and "Long Creek, Macon County, Illinois" as reported by another researcher caught my attention.
I seldom research Illinois data, and my ignorance of Macon County, Long Creek, Long Creek Twp, and the workings of the township system in Illinois is vast. So I didn't know if Leander was really born in the town of Long Creek, in Long Creek Twp, or what. And I didn't even know if the town of Long Creek was in Long Creek Twp or in some other township.
The RM gazetteer was actually more helpful that I expected. It included entries for Long Creek Twp, Macon, Illinois, United States and also for Long Creek, Macon, Illinois, United States. I was surprised to find the entry for Long Creek Twp because the Place Name Standard seems to have such an aversion to including the names of political subdivisions in standard names. A little further research indicated that Long Creek is a village (not a town) in Long Creek Twp in Macon County, Illinois. So it seems safe to assume that Leander was born in Long Creek Twp whether he was born inside the village of Long Creek or not. If he were born inside the township, then I might change his birth place to Long Creek, Long Creek Twp, Macon County, Illinois or I might just leave it as it is at Long Creek, Macon County, Illinois. But if he was born outside of the village, then I would change his birth place to Long Creek Twp, Macon County, Illinois. It's really impossible to tell what the other researcher meant.
Just to be clear, I'm whining much more about the Standard Place Name system than I am about RM. Standard Place Names shouldn't leave you dangling with ambiguities such as these. My whine about RM is simply that it's so committed to a naming standard that is such a poor standard.
Jerry