When you create a character, there should be messages written to one of the logs along the lines of:
Code:
Start zone query: SELECT x,y,z,zone_id,bind_id FROM start_zones ....
followed by:
Code:
Found starting location in start_zones
or
Code:
No start_zones entry in database, using defaults
I would create a troll and then check your logs to see what SQL query the server is executing to find the start zone and double-check you have a row that matches that query.