How and where are we categorizing Fraternal Organizations?

Question

Trying to figure what category to put a fraternal organization. Does fall under our ongoing conversation about schools, cemeteries, churches, etc? And even if it does what category heading would it go under? There are lots of them out there Moose, Lions club, IOOF, Shriners, etc. Just wondering what people thought.

I will try to remember to post this on the Talk page as well.

Answer 1

Category:Fraternal_Organizations  ?

Comments

I think that would be a good umbrella category. I guess my question was more along the lines of does Fraternal organizations go under "People" heading or "Free Space" and what subheading under one or the other of those major headings. Maybe the category you suggested would be the next step down, I am just not sure. I am inclined to think it will end up being treated the same as schools, churches, etc. but was curious what others thought.

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Hi Brian,

I think you're right that some of the finer points of the categorization do parallel what we decide on churches, schools, and cemeteries.

To throw this out there:

Organizations > Fraternal Organizations > Free and Accepted Masons  > Illinois Masonic Lodges > Chicago Masonic Lodge No. 437

Chris

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I'm starting to think that placing any of these organizations listed under locations also makes sense.  The category for  chicago you'd start to see churches, colleges, cemeteries, schools, and other organizations all listed but they would point to free space pages.  It would become a pretty powerful research tool and easier than trying to determine if a particular type of group exists.

At least that's what I'm thinking and I blame Chris

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Are all fraternal organizations associated with a geographical locations?

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That is a tough question. My feeling is they are kind of like churches. What I mean by that is most people who are part of a fraternal organization are part of a local chapter, which is then part of a larger national and/or global "parent" organization. Same thing with most churches you have the local congregation that is part of steadily larger groupings. My personal approach to this is to always refer to them on the local level, at least in terms of categorizing individuals and creating "historical" free space pages. (Note: My experience has been mostly with churches and such as I have only recently come across fraternal organizations in my tree.) I personally think it would be great if someone had the interest to create a "macro" level free space page for the denomination or fraternal organization or whatever, but when I am looking at it from a genealogical perspective most of the interest is in what happens at the local level as most of the time that is where the family member was active. So really the politics/beliefs of the organization while interesting is less important than the family members interaction with the group and people at the local level. (Hope I explained myself well.)

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I think you explained yourself very well, Brian. Good points. :-)

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Something like Freemason may warrant a category and listed on that category are the various lodge locations as well as in their respective counties.  Harry Truman and Zachay Taylor were huge Freemasons.  I'll see what works.  Since initially numbers will be very small how about a free space page for Virginia Freemasons.  We can add the profiles and their lodges.

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Can I point an internal link to a heading?  For instance on my Virginia Freemason page I have a heading for === Williamsburg == =  In James Monroe's profile can I place a link to the page and then to the heading as in #williamsburg?

 

Thanks