Proper format for county?

Question

Today I saw a change made by a Data Doctor from "Adams Township, Seneca, Ohio, United States" to "Adams Township, Seneca County, Ohio, United States".

I thought the proper format was to leave out the word County, so I have been changing all my profiles.  Am I supposed to put the word County back in?  I just want to be consistent with everyone else.

Comments

Thank you, Ellen, for enlightening us regarding the proper name which should have been applied to the birth place for this particular individual. I wonder if the suggestion 608, which was what the Data Doctor was working on, suggested to change the name to "New York Colony"? If so, then the suggestions are misleading folks who attempt to make corrections. If not, should the Data Doctor have consulted a "list" somewhere of historically correct place names when making such changes? If the latter, where would one find such a list within WikiTree? I remember once seeing a very confusing spreadsheet with place names for US colonies but I have no idea how to find it again. WikiTree has a wealth of information, I know, but it is not always easy to find.

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Nelda, I think you're probably referring to this free-space page and the linked tables:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:North_American_Place_Names

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This is the spreadsheet that is similar to the space page.  

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Dennis, the link to the spreadsheet from that page is similar to what I saw before, but this one looks more "refined" than the one I saw before. Thanks!

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Thank you, Linda.

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The suggestion called for changing "Provence" to "Province." (I looked it up.)

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Well, yes, when I tell someone where I live, where I grew up, etc., I give the name of the city or town, and almost never mention the county. But when people refer to the county, we always include the word "county" (unless the place is Alaska or Louisiana, where county-equivalents have different terms, or in Hawaii, where the counties are coterminous with islands).

When the place name references in Wikitree name fields refer to a county, as many of them do, they need to include the word County to avoid ambiguity.

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When the record/s of the day (their conventions) state placename, countyname County, statename -- but the record/s appear on an index (modern times - aka our conventions) leaving off the word County -- which conventions should we presume are correct?

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George, what is your authoritative source for what is proper or improper in the United States, if I may ask?  I think the way I would answer a question or describe a location would depend on the context.  Who would arbitrate the propriety of my description?

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Ellen, I agree.  I built my original family tree on Family Tree Maker on my computer.  All of my files had the word county.  But again, when I started adding them to Wikitree, I was trying to conform.  The drop downs, didn't include the word county, so I took it off.  I add a research note if it gets really confusing.  For Mead-6786, Moses lived in Fredericksontown, then Frederick, both in Dutchess.  He left his farm to his son Enos.  When Enos sold the farm it was in Kent in Putnam county.  So I added a note stating when each name change occurred.  I have learned my lesson now about conformity on Wikitree.  I will do what I think is best from now on, like everyone else.

Answer 1

Hi Barbara.  This subject has been debated multiple times in G2G.  Many of us make it a practice to include the word 'County' because it's sometimes necessary to avoid an ambiguity (when a town and a county have the same name).  Here are several of the old threads, when you have some time to kill:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/536387/really-good-idea-remove-county-united-states-location-names

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/357734/why-does-the-new-wikitree-help-box-remove-county-from-profiles

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1006041/are-we-adding-the-word-county-to-location

Comments

This is exactly what I mean.  I read those threads and I don't see any "rule of procedure" specified.  Just alot of "in my opinion".   I don't have a fighting stance on county vs no county.  My thing is consistency across all profiles.  I would happily follow the "standard", if there was one.  But it is such a pain to try to nail one down.

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Barbara, it can be frustrating when there doesn't seem to be an all encompassing guideline. 

My own personal opinion is to use whatever place description makes it easiest for someone else to find records for the person profiled. Using the place description that was in use at the time the person lived is more accurate. Counties and township names change over time. Our guiding principle is the same as the one for Name Fields: "use their conventions instead of ours."

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Uncertain_Locations

Family Search does have a drop down list on the site, but it mostly uses place names as they are now. 

And there are many records which have been mistranscribed and mis-indexed. This leads to some very interesting/ridiculous errors, people who apparently travelled more than 1000 km( and the only way to get there would have been by canoe)  to get married in a place that wasn't settled until almost 100 years later.