Project: Appalachia

Categories: Appalachia Project | Projects Related to Appalachia | Pre-1700 Projects


Welcome to the Appalachia Project

Appalachia is a rich culture that is unique in itself with diverse genealogy, religions, legends, economics and identity.

This project celebrates Appalachia's diversity.

Join us!

Contents


Goal

The primary goal of the Appalachia Project is to work collaboratively on WikiTree profiles of Appalachian people with proper sourcing, detailed biographies and appropriate categories.
The project is open to those interested in the Appalachian areas.
To accomplish this goal is simple: Add (or enhance existing) Profiles, Write, Source and Connect.
  1. Add Appalachian-related profiles, checking for existing profiles to avoid duplication. If any duplicate profiles exist, request merges.
  2. Clean up GEDCOM residue and fix broken links. For example: The DeCoursey gedcom and the Howe(1) gedcom and the Smith-Hunter.ged have a tremendous amount of work needed.
  3. Write comprehensive, well-sourced biographies.
  4. Add any relevant categories to Appalachian profiles.
  5. Connect Profiles to the WikiTree tree.
To Make a Profile Complete for the Appalachia Project, you need Reliable Sources, Complete Biography, Stickers and Categories

How to Join

Answer in our registration post to join us.
Are you interested in the Appalachia Project?united_states.gif
Team Leaders: Erin (Soltysiak) Robertson (Northern Region), Karen Stewart (North Central Region), Pam (Dale) Fraley (Central Region), Tabor (Hoff) Fisher (South Central Region), and Paula (Brewer) Franklin (Southern Region).

Appalachian Regions

Five Appalachian Regions
Although Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, with the area being defined in 1965 based on economic need vs cultural parameters, it is generally accepted that there are five regions: Northern, North Central, Central, South Central, and Southern.
Appalachia is a 205,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
About 23.6 million people live in the 423 counties of the Appalachian Region with 42% considered Rural.
In 1839 Washington Irving proposed to rename the United States "Alleghania" or "Appalachia" in place of "America", since the latter name belonged to Latin America too. Edgar Allan Poe later took up the idea, and considered Appalachia a much better name than America or Alleghania; he thought it better defined the United States as a distinct geographical entity, separate from the rest of the Americas, and he also thought it did honor to both Irving and the natives who the Appalachian Mountains had been named after.

Five Regional Teams

The Appalachia Project is organized into Teams in order to help with collaboration and communication across the project. Members are required to belong to at least one Regional Team. Each team has its specific tasks and to-do lists:
Northern Appalachia Team (team category)
Includes Maryland Appalachians, New York Appalachians, Ohio Appalachians, Pennsylvania Appalachians, and West Virginia Appalachians
North Central Appalachia Team (team category)
Includes Ohio Appalachians and West Virginia Appalachians
Central Appalachia Team (team category)
Includes Kentucky Appalachians, Tennessee Appalachians, Virginia Appalachians, and West Virginia Appalachians
South Central Appalachia Team (team category)
Includes North Carolina Appalachians, Tennessee Appalachians, and Virginia Appalachians
Southern Appalachia Team (team category)
Includes Alabama Appalachians, Georgia Appalachians, Mississippi Appalachians, and South Carolina Appalachians.


Six Physiographic Provinces of Appalachia

Map of Appalachia
The six physiographic provinces that in whole or in part are commonly treated as components of Appalachia are:
  1. Appalachian Plateau
  2. Allegheny Mountains
  3. Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians
  4. Great Appalachian Valley
  5. Blue Ridge Mountains
  6. Piedmont
See also this map.[1]

Pronunciation

Appalachia is pronounced differently, mostly based on where you live. The word "Appalachia " was created by members of the Narváez expedition from a village of indigenous peoples transcribed as Apalchen (a pal a en). The Spanish altered it to their dialect to Apalache (a pal latch ee). In 1528, Spanish Conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez spelled the name "Appalachian," and it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U.S.
So, how is it pronounced?
Northern dialects pronounce it as App-a-lay-cha
Southern dialects pronounce it as App-uh-latch-uh ---> Most inhabitants use this pronunciation

Genealogy in Appalachia

Appalachian culture is a way of life that dates back to the 1700s, when Europeans began immigrating to America in greater numbers. Although it started in the states of North Carolina and Virginia, the culture spread quickly to other states after the Revolutionary War, as settlers began to explore outside the original 13 colonies.
Genealogy and finding accurate sources can sometimes be a challenge in the Appalachian areas due to the distrust many residents have of outsiders as well as courthouses being burned during the Civil War. As a result, "fictional genealogy" has been propagated among the hobby genealogy community.
This area has also been called the "Allegheny Mountains."

List of Things To Do

  • Add our Appalachia Project Stickers and Categories to Existing WikiTree Profiles (see details below; see also here & here for Stickers & Categories, respectively; see also the project's Categorization Guidance).
  • Add Fully Completed Appalachia Project based Profiles to WikiTree.

Ongoing List of Things to Do

  1. Appalachian Notables: Add or Enhance Author, Musicians, Politicians, Actors, etc Profiles to/within WikiTree. See Category: Appalachia, Notables
  2. Work on unconnected and unsourced profiles within the Appalachian region.
  3. Work on Suggestions for profiles from Appalachian region, as reported by the Data Doctors Project.
  4. Add profiles for the Appalachian Military men and women who served in area wars or joined the military from the Appalachian regions. See [:Category:Military_and_War_Project Military and War Project]
  5. Finding Appalachians in WikiTree - Unconnected and Unsourced lists

Future Goals

  • Create new profiles for people of Appalachia who are documented in a family member's profile, but might not have their own profiles yet. See Needs Profiles Created for each State.
  • Create more Appalachian Census Space pages and link them to profiles.
  • Help develop the Native Americans Project with information about tribes in the Appalachian Region.
  • Add or Enhance Profiles of Northeast United States Mining Disasters Team and Southeast United States Mining Disasters Team
  • Create Space page on Appalachian Trail and other significant areas that span Appalachia.
  • Cemeteries in Appalachia need to be photographed and the categories added to profiles on WikiTree. See the Cemeteries Project

Templates

  • Only add the project box if the profile is managed by the Appalachia Project profile account. Otherwise add the sticker.
  • The Project Box goes above the == Biography == heading, ALL OTHER STICKERS GO UNDER == Biography == HEADING!
The template {{Appalachia}} which will give you:
Appalachia Project
... ... ... was associated with Appalachia.
Join: Appalachia Project
Discuss: Appalachia
The template can accommodate the project's three needs categories:
{{Appalachia|needs=Biography|needs1=Research|needs2=Sources}}
The above template is for use only on profiles that are of importance to the project or need to be PPP'd and managed by the project.
It is not for every single person from Appalachia.
Stickers For Appalachia Profiles: Review our Project Stickers for specific details.
Profile Stickers always go under the ==Biography== Heading. For the many Appalachia Project Sticker Choices, see Appalachia Project Stickers. Information about the project's member sticker is also on the Membership page.

Managed and Protected Profiles

Details for our process for the Appalachia Project Managed or Project Protected Profiles. All Appalachia Project Notable, PMP/PPP Profiles are required to be submitted for approval.

Appalachian Categories

The Appalachia Project Index has an overview of the project's categories, including Team categories (see Team Pages). For more detailed guidance, click the "Categorization Guidance" tab toward the top of this page (or click here).
The main category for project pages & project members is Category:Appalachia Project. To see the "live" categorization hierarchy for the project, click here (doing so will open the [Navigate] page for Category:Appalachia Project - every category page has such a link at the upper right corner of the page).
Your help in adding appropriate categories to profiles of Appalachians would be appreciated.
The Appalachia Project Index also has a brief overview of the project's Categorization_Hierarchy, including Maintenance_Categories. See that category for links to the individual maintenance categories, including the project's following four "needs" categories (as of October 2022):
To suggest a new needs category, please post to the project's Google Group (not Discord or G2G). If you are not a project member, you can post a comment on the project's Index page or Categorization Guidance page and a project leader will bring it up in the Google Group.
If there are any categories you would like added so you can see a particular population, please contact the Appalachia Project liaison to the Categorization Project.

Project Contacts & Liaisons

Appalachia Project Contacts
Categories Sandy
Liaisons with Other Projects & Teams
Categorization Project Sandy
Cemeteries Project Sandy
Connectors Project Melissa Maynard
Military & War Karen Stewart
One Place Studies Project OPS: Sandy
Profile Improvement Project
Liaisons with United States ProjectsContact the appropriate Appalachia Project Team's TL or Sandy.
Challenge Team Contacts
Team Virginia Mindy
Appalachia Roots Team PageSandy

Other Projects & links that correlate with the Appalachia Project

Projects Related to Appalachia

See the Category: Projects Related to Appalachia.


United States Project
Alabama Georgia Kentucky Maryland
Mississippi New York North Carolina Ohio
Pennsylvania South Carolina Tennessee Virginia
West Virginia 13 States 423 Counties




Sources

  1. ↑ Wikipedia: Great Appalachian Valley (accessed 28 June 2022).
Appalachia Project Reliable Sources and not Reliable Sources.

Resources

  • Wikipedia: Appalachia
  • Space, Place, and Appalachia, collection of Publications on Appalachia.
  • Stewart, George R. (1967). Names on the Land. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
  • Appalachia Then and Now: Examining Changes to the Appalachian Region since 1965, Appalachian Regional Commission
  • Walls, David (1977). "On the Naming of Appalachia" Archived May 28, 2010, at the Wayback Machine An Appalachian Symposium. Edited by J. W. Williamson. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University Press.
  • Lee, Tom, "Southern Appalachia's Nineteenth-Century Bright Tobacco Boom: Industrialization, Urbanization, and the Culture of Tobacco", Agricultural History 88 (Spring 2014), 175–206.
  • Becker, Jane S. Inventing Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930–1940 (1998).
  • Poe, Edgar Allan (2006). "The Name of the Nation". In Kennedy, Gerald (ed.). The Portable Edgar Allan Poe. Penguin Books. p. 600.


This page was last modified 18:14, 10 April 2024. This page has been accessed 17,569 times.