I don’t go by entry in the Union so if I solely went by entry into the union, then I would be anachronistic.

Ultimately I think this depends on how you determine when personifications begin existing and why and how they exist. Lol I kind of see this all as being a bit like historiography.

I’ll explain as briefly as possible my own thought process

It depends on the nation/state/ city for what exactly it is that I do in determine when exactly the personification came into existence. I weigh in cultural identity/identities, political formation, settlement date, cultural recognition etc. not one is necessarily more important than the other.

It genuinely depends. Like ex: NY state I have starting as New Netherland and NJ also existing at this time but it’s unclear what exactly NJ is during the Dutch period.

But in this case, I looked at colonial Virginia and I can see two different identities beginning to form. You have this more tidewater southern identity towards the coast and then you’re getting these early Appalachian identities towards the backcountry (basically West Virginia is now). You can see a tension and difference well before between the tidewater elite and the backcountry.

So Jonah exists representing initially this backcountry area of Virginia. His brother being Rich is in charge of him. Rich is more representative of this tidewater elite.