Proposed Policy: Immigration Categories [closed]

Question

A proposed category structure has been presented and discussed among the members of the Categorization Project, and is now ready for review in the G2G forum:

Migration Category Structure

Please take a look at the proposed structure (linked above) and offer any comments on the proposal or further suggestions to the structure, which will be considered by the Categorization Project.

If no further changes are needed, this proposed structure will become WikiTree policy for categories addressing emigration and immigration.

---

Update: Nouns in the category structure have been updated in accordance with Help:Category Names (per Ellen's Answer).

• Emigration from is now Emigrants from
• Immigration to is now Immigrants to
• Migration from is now Migrants from

---

Update: Closing thread - moving to Finalized Plan announcement.

Comments

Thanks for all your work on this, Steve.  It’s exactly what is needed to clarify and organize what has become an untidy bunch pf categories.

---

Thank you Robert.

While I have dedicated quite a bit of time to this task, I feel it would be wrong to not mention the tireless work, discussion and efforts put forth by the Categorization Project on this topic - so I would like to thank them for all of their contributions as well, up to an including putting up with my endless series of questions!

---

This is very confusing for the average user of Wikitree.  Would you give an example for the current [[Category:German Immigrants to Texas]].  What would the categories would this category fall under.

---

The current [[Category:German Immigrants to Texas]] would eventually be removed, renamed or otherwise 'disposed of' based on the proposed structure. The reasoning is that profiles should be listed under the narrowest category possible:

If a category could contain millions of people create a narrower subcategory. Ideally, bottom-level categories should be much smaller, with no more than a few thousand people in them. This isn't always possible, e.g. with towns and cities, but we should aim to create narrow categories when we can.

Even though the wording quoted above is slightly ambiguous, the category in question could easily surpass "a few thousand" profiles. From 1850 to 1900 alone, German born persons made up over 5% of the Texas population, totaling around 150,000 people.

We would also consider that the current category lists a Country to State relationship, when we would expect the landing category (where profiles are attached) to be as narrow as possible, in this case, German State to US State.

---

So in order to help illustrate how the structure would work, I pulled up [[Category:German Immigrants to Texas]] and selected the profile for Karl Friedrich Frenzel (1837 - 1919). Karl was born and lived in Saxony, Germany and came to Texas around 1870.

To categorize this, we would have two structures to follow (depending on how the research is done).

First, if we followed from the Germany path as an emigrant, we would start at Migration and work our way down to the level we know, which in this case is the category we would expect most profiles to be listed under (shown in red):

[[Category:Migration]]
	[[Category: Emigrants from Germany]]
		[[Category:Emigrants from Saxony]]
			[[Category:Emigrants from Saxony to United States]]
				[[Category:Migrants from Saxony to Texas]]

Second, if we had followed the path from Texas as an immigrant, we would again would start at Migration and work our way down to the level known, which in this case is still the category we would expect most profiles to be listed under (shown in red):

[[Category:Migration]]
	[[Category:Immigrants to United States]]
		[[Category:Immigrants to Texas]]
			[[Category:Immigrants to Texas from Germany]]
				[[Category:Migrants from Saxony to Texas]]

It should also be noted that the examples given above are following logical paths to reach a category only for the purpose of this discussion. [[Category:Migrants from Saxony to Texas]] will not only have the parent category [[Category:Immigrants to Texas from Germany]], but will possibly have multiple parent categories.

---

As another example, and in the event that more information is not known to get us to the preferred category, we would still follow the same structures listed above in order to find the applicable categories.

This time, I selected the profile of Mary Magdalena (Arnold) Hierholzer (1838 - 1898). All that is currently known is that Mary was born in Germany and eventually moved to Texas. The categories that would be placed on the profile*, would be (as shown in red):

[[Category:Migration]]
	[[Category: Emigrants from Germany]]

and:

[[Category:Migration]]
	[[Category:Immigrants to United States]]
		[[Category:Immigrants to Texas]]
			[[Category:Immigrants to Texas from Germany]]

---

*In this second example, I would personally not use [[Category:Emigrants from Germany]]on this profile. Based on the information known, the research is clearly happening from the 'Texas immigrant' side, and that is most likely where that user would be following the Migration stream. This Immigrant category also puts them one step closer to the preferred category level. 

Please let me know if this helps in the understanding of the proposed structure...

---

This helps.   For many profiles the Place in Germany (or other countries) that they came from is not known.   For some profiles, the person is an Immigrant to Texas Territory vice Texas the State, also.

Someone should set up in advance the Category structure for [[Category:Immigrants to Texas from Germany]] and above for counties where most immigrants came from, so that every users doesn't have to worry about anything but what goes on the Profile.

---

Steven, Would the category be used for the first place the settled, or anywhere he moved to later? Example: George Frye emigrated from Hanover to Missouri, after landing in New Orleans. After a year or so, he moved to Seattle, Oregon Territory, where he spent the rest of his life.  Would the correct category be [[Category:Migrants from Hanover to Missouri]], or could he also have the category [[Category:Migrants from Hanover to Oregon Territory]].

This also shows that we need categories for the United States for both States and Territories.

---

Vic, I would have to defer back to the Scope of the proposal,

Human migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, in a new location. 

In the example you gave, the route was:

Hanover > New Orleans > Missouri > Oregon Territory.

The Hanover to Missouri move was his migration path (he left Hanover with the intent on moving to Missouri), so this is [[Category:Migrants from Hanover to XX]], where XX is the local level name of the place in Missouri if known or applicable.

New Orleans only served as his port of arrival based on your description, and could be documented as such through a related, but separate category stream.

The move from Missouri to Seattle would either be another migration event (if geopolitical boundaries were involved at the time period), or it would be classified like an internal migration (which falls outside the scope of these categories), in which case you could use the Region category streams in addition to a well sourced and written biography.

Answer 1

Great job, Steven!

Answer 2

Very nice work on the structure for these categories.

However, I regret that I hadn't been following the discussion more closely, as I have one little (or maybe not so little) concern about nouns.

Specifically, almost all of the profiles that would get categorized in this proposed structure are profiles for individual people, but the nouns that you are currently proposing to use (migration, emigration, immigration) refer to acts or events (or phenomena). Our ancestors who migrated were people; they weren't events; and we shouldn't be categorizing them as if they were events. The noun for a person who (for example) emigrates is emigrant, with plural emigrants.

The Palatine Migration Project deals with a large-scale migration event, and the project is named for the event, and we have placed the individual people who participated in that event in a category called Palatine Migrants, using a project template that says "[Person] was a Palatine Migrant." I think that same sort of logic should apply to these proposed categories. The last time I looked through the ongoing discussion of this, the category names I saw included people nouns like "Emigrants." Why was that changed?

Comments

Good point. In order to be consistent with the way we apply other categories, the level 2 and lower categories should be "Emigrants from ..." and "Immigrants to ..."

---

This is a very valid point Ellen. I think we were (at least me) caught up on the actual framework and had not taken the 'nouns' into account.

The good news is that I see this as a very minor change, and one in which further discussion shouldn't be needed since we have the rules on category naming conventions already established.

This change also does not pose any impact to the structure being presented, so I will go ahead and make the applicable changes and update the thread.

---

Thanks, Steven!

Answer 3

Category England had a very muddled set of immigration/emigration categories that made no sense. So we've just sorted them out. But without knowing about this.

As far as I can see, this fits reasonably until we come to the lower levels of emigration, where it seems that Migrants becomes the desirable term to avoid the immigrant/emigrant issue. The trouble is that to change this would need a massive effort and probably a whole team devoted to it.

Perhaps some of you could look and comment.

Comments

When the only issue is giving a category a different name, Editbot can take care of the work.

The templates {{Rename Category|NewCategoryName}} and {{Merge Category|NewCategoryName}} tell Editbot what he needs to do. See Help:Categorization for additional details.

---

Nice idea, but I think it is rather more complicated than that.

I'd really like people to look at what exists and make suggestions about how it might be improved, although personally I'm happy with it.

---

Martin,

From what I can see, it looks as if the England Project has taken the liberty of constructing their own structure for migration events, most of which do not connect back to the current Immigration category until you are multiple layers deep in the structure.

---

Steven,

I take exception to your 'taken the liberty'. We have done no such thing. When I came to it we had what PMs had created (as is so often the case). There were categories called immigration to England which contained emigrants to America etc. etc. We have reconstructed that so that it now makes complete sense. We have included immigration to other places rather than create complete duplicate categories, which would be the only other answer. I ran it past Categorisation earlier.

What we have links back to England, which is the whole point. It is this failure to take regions into account that is the problem with the suggested Migration category. We needed a set of links, which could be used by PMs from an English perspective.

I have to say that, in my view, Categorisation will do itself no favours by trying to shoehorn things into one global box.

Perhaps we could start again without the unfortunate tone?

---

Martin, apologies for the wording, it wasn't meant with negative connotations, and I certainly see how it came off that way.

In regards to the region structure being taken into account, this was discussed within the group as being a second level parent when applicable and is not excluded from the proposal.

So as an example of the proposed structure, English Emigrants would have two appropriate parent categories, Migration and England.

---

Thanks Steven. Misunderstanding. I had been hoping for some constructive ideas :-).

So, what you are saying is that the categories England, Immigrants and England, Emigrants should also be linked to Migration? I see no problem with that, but before I make any more changes I'd like to hear any more thoughts. Then  I'll run through it again.

---

Ideally, all categories would be linked to the applicable parents, so yes - those would be eventually be linked to Migration under this proposal (what is now Immigration).

Also see the proposal details here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Migration_Category_Structure#Second_Level, where those categories are being suggested to follow the format of Emigrants from England and Immigrants to England.

For now, I would hold off on any changes while this proposal is being considered. I can look further into the England categories tomorrow and give you an idea on what changes nlwould be needed in order to fit the proposed structure. This would give you a better idea of what the structure would look like in your case.

---

Fine. Thanks.