George Long supposedly came from “North of Ireland” to Carroll County, Ohio, in about 1817.1 The problem is, Carroll County did not exist in 1817; it was formed in 1833 from five counties: Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson, Stark, and Tuscarawas. My hypothesis is then that he had to have been in one of these counties before coming to Hancock County.
In writing my proof argument, I wanted to cite the exact law that created Carroll County. I have numerous books on Ohio, the county boundary changes, I also utilize the Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. The Atlas has a timeline of each county’s boundary changes, as well as a bibliography to help point you to the laws.
As you can see, the entry lists sources for the information. I like to read the laws myself. (I guess I have trust issues. But that all stems from being “burned” in the past.)
I turned to Debbie Mieszala’s website The Advancing Genealogist. She has been collecting and posting links to historic law books. I found the one referenced in the image above quite easily. She links directly to the book on Google Books.2 Very handy! Thank you to Debbie for this fantastic resource!
If you need to find a historic law, try Debbie’s website. It is a great resource that has saved me a bunch of time on this and other projects as well. Check it out!
1. J. H. Beers, Commemorative, Historical and Biographical Record of Wood County, Ohio. (Chicago: J.H. Beers and Co, 1897), pp. 714-715. Available on Google Books.↩
2. Acts of A General Nature Passed at the First Session of the Thirty First General Assembly of the State of Ohio (Columbus: State of Ohio, 1832), p. 8; digital image, Google Books (https://books.google.com/ : Viewed 17 July 2024.↩
Genealogy Pants 
I found that website a few years ago. So helpful!
I too like to read old statutes from England to better understand aspects of my research. Some are easier to find than others. Great this website is available for those researching in Ohio.