Location category for New Netherland

Question

Any objections to creating a New Netherland category here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:North_America I'm imaging it to be much like the British North America category seen there only mostly historical. If you go through the categories now it almost seems as if New Netherland never existed, aside from the project of course.

 

Answer 1

Carrie, before you do so, please review my page on

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:New_Netherland_Settlements

which is still somewhat in process. There are some 50 settlements that will need to be properly grouped and categorized for New Netherland, and they cross three or four states, depending on whether we count the factorijen, and whether we count Pennsylvania as well as Delaware.

I have thought about dividing it by the rivers and islands as major groups. Except that the Hudson would have to be an upper and  lower. And Long Island is both Dutch and British ruled, so it gets complicated.

Also, I have been trying to figure this out from the perspective of a need for a more comprehensive historical place category structure. For instance, New Sweden was assumed in the midst of New Netherland claimed territory, and was then defeated, and so then ceased to exist, and was then absorbed into New Netherland.

There are countless examples around the world.

I have been thinking of approaching as a beginning structure with something perhaps simple, such as West Virginia. My ancestors are from Wetzel County, which was in Virginia. But then became West Virginia in 1863.

So I would like to see a historical structure to accomodate this. Since Wetzel Country stayed the same place,it can be cross-categorzied to modern West Virginia, and also to historical eastern Virginia pre-1863. Something like that.

So, maybe first we might have some kind of master top-level category, Historical Places.

Then Historical Places in North America.

Then Historical Places in West Virginia.

Then Historical Eastern Virginia pre-1863.

New Netherland would be under Historical Places in New York, etc.

I don't know the best structure yet. I am just kicking it around, because we need something proper and consistent around the world. For instance, an entire half of Germany and of Poland are not where they used to be..

Comments

Nice page!

I think they should be grouped by settlement. Counties weren't even put into place until 1683 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_in_New_York, and as you're only dealing with ~50 settlements, there's no reason they can't all be together a category; they'd even be on the same page. If you want to see the issue with grouping a Dutch settlement by what county it was originally in (when formed) or is currently in, look at the mess that OliveTree is with thier Dutch baptism records http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/nn/church/index.shtml, or even on FamilySearch. [[Schenectady, New Netherland]] would be unique. Or maybe [[Schenectady, Nieuw-Netherland]]

New Netherlands and any other Dutch settlement should get the same respect that the British Thirteen Colonies does, which is currently at North America>British North America>Thirteen Colonies. I think it should go North America>New Netherland>said settlements. Then to those settlements you can add any place that it may have become later become as a category.

As far as adding a parallel Historical mega-category, eh, personally I think it would mean you'd have to know exactly what you were looking for as opposed to accidentally learning something, much like the way that the FamilySearch wiki is set up, but I have nothing constructive to suggest.

Virginia is a bit different I think; it would be categorized under West Virginia but also Virginia. It kind of sucks to have to check FindAGrave for both when you know an ancestor didn't leave that area. Maybe in that case it would make sense to have a subcategory under Virginia with a 1788-1863 date or something for counties that were formerly located in Virginia? So Wetzel County would have the categories [[West Virginia]][[Virginia 1788-1863]]?

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It is my intention to do the same at some stage ... great page Steven ... !

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Thanks to Carrie and Steven for the work you've done thinking about how this should be done.

Another analogous situation to look at is Category:Plymouth_Colony. It's set up so that the categories for the modern towns that were part of Plymouth Colony are contained categories within Plymouth Colony. This means, for example, that if I place a 1600s profile in the category for Little Compton, Rhode Island, that profile will be in a subcategory of both the historical Plymouth Colony and modern Newport County, Rhode Island. That arrangement isn't perfect -- and the places that made up New Netherland have undergone more radical changes of names and boundaries than the towns that formed Plymouth Colony, but it's another model to consider.

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From.a catrgory perspective.. would be better to have United States, Historical Places... but I question the use of this.. I don't believe you mean historical places.. I believe the correct category should be.. top category...Defunct Locations... then within this... United States, Defunct Locations etc..

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Thanks to all for helping us think through this conundrum.

I like the comparable treatment of Plymouth Colony.

I like the suggested [[Category:Virginia 1788-1863]] because that makes it very clear as a location to put the modern Wetzel County and Tyler County, etc.

I think New Netherland as a category is an obvious choice. But in keeping with the rule of "use their names, not ours" should it be Nieuw Nederland?

As far as a master category, Historical Places, Defunct Places, Old Places, Former Places ... I think that Germany and Poland would be a good subject to start with. Germany and Poland have kept the names, but the borders have shifted hundred of miles.

So maybe Germany ... - 1945. And then East Germany 1945-1991. If I am categorizing a free-space page about something of a town in pre-war eastern Germany, it is now in Poland.

Ideally, we might have templates that utilize swtches for GPS coordinates and appropriate time frames. The Dutch Roots project template group has just built something sort of along these lines.

It would be a massive effort, but it would solve the problem of people creating tons of historical place and time categories, that are a mishmash. GPS coordinates could be put on all the modern place name categories for easy reference.

So then a user would need to only find the modern town category, and use those corresponding GPS coordinates for whatever village, settlement, farm, fort, etc. happened to once be located there. Refining the location later with new evidence would be a simple matter of tweaking the GPS switch a bit, as needed.

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Yes, Steven, it needs to be Nieuw Nederland. Excellent point!

And your idea of emulating the Dutch Roots template is great -- although there will be times when the modern place name will not be sufficiently specific to locate the place name of long ago, and there will be times when a user has an historic place name, but isn't sure what the place is called now. Ideally, the template would be set up to accept location input in the form of either (1) modern place name, (2) latitude and longitude, or (3) historic place name, with date.

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Yes the place names should definitely stay Dutch, as Nieuw Nederland. And Albany should be Beverwijck, New York should be Nieuw Amsterdam. Even though it was a melting pot of nationalities and cultures, Dutch was the unifying language for a very long time.

One issue with treating the settlements as you would an British colony is few of the names were retained. Albany could be a subcategory of Beverwijck and Beverwijck a subcategory of Albany, where as Bristol, Massachusetts is just a subcategory of Plymouth Colony and Bristol County, Massachusetts.

The idea of templates is a great idea but I would like to see a more immediate solution. The reason is that I've been working to categorize the DRCs of New Netherlands (it's really important information that points to records and gives migration paths) and had to add a location to the church names to keep up with the category reorganization. Let me tell you that I felt like a low-down dirty dog placing these in the provinces but had no other choice because New Netherlands doesn't exist in categories http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Dutch_Reformed_Churches%2C_United_States_of_America

I haven't fully decided on what location should be in the title of church category, but feel that it should be North America>Nieuw Nederland>Religious Institutions of Nieuw Nederland>Dutch>churches

I really hope this wouldn't have to wait until "history" has been solved.

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Thanks Ellen. I am really into this GPS idea.

It would solve the problem where people enter plaxe names that make no sense, such as Brooklyn, Long Island, Indiana.

People could ideally use the template GPS coordinates to test an uncertain location. Having the time frame switch would also clarify some things on many previously entered location fields in profiles.

I end up scratching my head on most of it, even when it makes sense. For instance, Queens and Kings, is a town straddling the border at some point in time, or or the town at opposite ends of the Borough, and so then one must be completely wrong? GPS would help sort all those dilemmas.

I am not an expert on GPS, but I think it can be structured to report a degree of range. For instance, I would want to be able to put the GPS coordinate at just the county or state level, if I am very unsure. As I get more sure, then I would add more precision to the GPS coordinate.

I know that Find-a-Grave now uses GPS coordinates down to the actual gravestome.

And they also have a coordinate for the entire cemetery. For example, here is Florida National Cemetery
GPS Coordinates: Latitude: 28.60583, Longitude: -82.21009
 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=crMap&CRid=109404

At the very least, WikiTree Cemetery project might start to enter those coordinatees in all of the cemetery category pages.

But what I do not know is if that coordinate is broad territory in a one-mile radius, or if it is simply a coordinate of a two-foot section that happens to be at a certain central point within the cemetery. We would first need an answer to that question, for any of this ideal to be feasible.

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Carrie, I would be hesitant to rush into any categories at the settlement level.

But until the rest of this gets somewhat worked out, I think we are probably okay to soon start Nieuw Nederland. Or would it be Nieuw-Nederland instead?

I don't know the siginficance or not of that hyphen, so I would want a second opinion.

In either case it is a unique place, I think, as opposed to say New Holland, which shows up elsewhere in the world at multiple sites.

And I don't think in this case it needs dates on the end of it, such as 1624-1674. Those can just be in the explanatory text on the category page.

Having the name in Dutch really does serve as the clue that it is a historical place that we mean by it.

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Absolutely. I'm guessing it should be Nieuw-Nederland as that's how it is on the Dutch Wikipedia page https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuw-Nederland Same with Nieuw-Amsterdamn https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuw-Amsterdam_(Nieuw-Nederland)

 

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Since you bring up Germany ... It did not exist as a country before 1871. The nowadays Polish areas you are referencing were from 1772 until 1871 part of the Königreich Preußen (Kingdom of Prussia), for the time before 1806 outside the Holy Roman Empire. Before 1772 they were part of Preußen but under Polish sovereignty, before 1701 part of Brandenburg-Preußen. Before that parts of the Mark Brandenburg, later Kurfürstentum Brandenburg were East of the Oder but part of the Holy Roman Empire, everything else East of the Oder and now Polish were in fact Polish before they became part of Brandenburg-Preußen.

The Holy Roman Empire at its peak had more than 300 souvereign members which constantly changed their borders, sometimes one village at the time. That history alone, in my opinion, makes historic categories unwieldy. A different approach is to have categories following modern political affiliations and provide a timeline for bottom-level categories (see for example [[Category:Rudolfov]] http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Rudolfov

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And then there are the Mennonites for example, amongst other secterian movements direct descendants of the Anababtists ...

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The idea of Steven of historical timelines (chartered in any which way) seems the most sensible here see this example (very simplistic) and this one or a moving .gif or a more complex geo-political map of the far east in the mid-nineteeth century ... 

The gps-idea I used when searching where the first inn owned by family members in the newly established gold-mining town of Johannesburg might have been ....

 

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The only issue I see with this is..the people looking for and researching some of these lines only speak English.. I see this as resulting in multiple categories being built incorrectly...my other issue, as I stated before, these are not historical places... hustorical places are places not locations and us they are designated as a historical place.. then it still exists today.. such as President Lincoln's house or some of the reconditioned forts etc. You are referring to defunct locations.

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As to the first issue, that's debating the Categorization Project, not the New Netherlands categorization as this is how it is already done across the board.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Nouvelle-France

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Nueva_Espa%C3%B1a

This is simply doing the same for New Netherland.

Some parts of Wikitree may need to be translated (heck in the Chrome browser it's as simple as a right click) but that's another project. The New Netherlands was "conquered" by the British so to require that it all be in English is a bit tactless. The New Netherland project spends most of its time "un-Americanizing" things.

 

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Seems that this got all of the feedback that it could so I've started a new thread. http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/152552/nieuw-nederland-categorization

Answer 2

I agree. Have the same  problem with (sub-Saharan) Africa though that issue seems to have been solved now or is in the process of being solved.

Comments

That's even more bizarre. It would appear that you don't exist sir.