One Name Studies / One Place Studies

Question

I've been working my through a number of one name studies and one place studies and see an important relationship here.

I've created a few freepages for particular family names in a location.  See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Wills_families_of_Dunsford%2C_Devon%2C_England Wills families of Dulnsford, Devon England; and https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Treloar%2C_Trelowarth_Family_of_Wendron%2C_Cornwall%2C_England Trelowarth Family of Wendron, Cornwall as a couple of examples.

Would it be easier to have a category of such specific studies?

Name ONS - Place (e.g. Wills ONS - Dunsford, Devon)

This would sit directly under the ONS (e.g. Wills Name Study), and directly under the OPS (e.g. Dunsford, Devon One Place Study).

It would save the effort of having to update the freepage all the time, and reduce the need to have most of these types of freepages in the first place.

Comments

I'm still trying to get my head around the correlation between One Name Studies and One Place Studies in relation to categorisation.

The hierarchy for One Name Studies is as follows:

• Categories
• Family
• One Name Studies
• xxx Name Study
• (country), xxx Name Study
• (county/state), xxx Name Study
• (location, county/state), xxx Name Study

The hierarchy for One Place Studies is as follows:

• Categories
• Family
• One Place Studies
• (country), Place Study
• (county/state), Place Study
• (location, county/state), Place Study

Q1: Top level hierarchy.

Why does '''One Name Studies''' nest under '''Family'''? The whole purpose of this site/database is about connecting people and families. '''One Name Studies''' should nest at the top under '''Categories''', as should '''One Place Studies''' which definitely doesn't make sense to have under '''Family''' but I would expect to find under '''Regions''' if it is to follow the logic that it can’t fit under Categories, as we are discussing locations here not people as such.  When trying to find the top level of these studies it is not logical to search under Family.

I propose that both One Place Studies and One Name Studies should nest directly under Categories not under Family.

 Q2: Nesting location, xxx Name Study, and location, One Place Study under the location as subcategories.

I wish to propose we return to the '''(location, county/state), xxx Name Study''' also being a subcategory of the '''(location, county/state)''' category.

Apparently this recently changed but has not been reflected in the policies and guidelines pages for '''ONS''' (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Category_Guidelines_for_Name_Studies) nor '''locations''' (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Category_Names_for_Regions).  Nowhere in these policies and guidelines does it say we cannot nest them under the region location.  What was the argument for this change to removing name studies and place studies from the location category? 

I am unclear why this change would have taken place as it complicates the way some users might approach utilising categories in their search strategies.  I don't remember seeing anything in the G2G notifications mentioning that this change had taken place.

For example: In '''Bridford, Devon''' there are name studies for '''Beer''', '''Hodges''', and '''Wills''' that I am aware of. There may be more but it is not possible to easily locate all those name studies by going to the place category as they are not listed as subcategories of the place. A google search finds '''Devon, Murch Name Study''' with profiles from Bridford, but doesn't break into subcategories by location, Devon.  The only way I could find this study was via a Google search using the terms “WikiTree Bridford Name Study.  The alternative was to go through every name study, navigate through England, Devon to see if there was a subcategory for Bridford.  This would have taken weeks. 

The same applies for the One Place Studies.  I would like to be able to find them from the region, location category.  Or does this mean that every location, xxx Name Study needs to nest under the location, One Place Study in order to be able easily locate all the name studies for that place.  However, not all name studies have an associated place study so that doesn’t work either.

If I'm looking to see what other name studies there are for one place which may not be part of a place study, I should be able to find them under the location category. This is basic indexing theory. If a place is an element of a category then that place should be higher up the hierarchy for the narrower category.

e.g. Dunsford, Devon, Wills Name Study should have parent categories of Dunsford, Devon and Devon, Wills, Name Study as these are both elements of that category.

Similarly Dunsford, Devon, One Place Study should point up to Dunsford, Devon and Devon, One Place Studies.

The place category should point to the ONS and the OPS to enable searchers to see what other collations of data are available for that place.

I’m aware that not everyone thinks the same way, therefore we should make it easier to locate studies that might relate to each other through a place.  The logical point of reference for this is through the location category which is in the subcategory hierarchy from Regions.

I propose that we encourage users to link the location, xxx Name Study and location, One Place Study to that location at the lowest levels.  This would not be the case at higher levels (eg, county/state) or (country).

I’ve been told that I can find this information from WikiTree++, however, it is not possible to get to WikiTree++ from a person’s profile so I don’t know how to get to it to run a search.  It is not in the drop down list from Find in the top menu, so it is not something that I use as I always work from profiles adding categories to them.  Then I click on the category to see who else is in that category and what the subcategories and parent categories are that might be useful for further research.  I usually search through categories using the hierarchy tree to go up and down to find what I want.  When it is not there I assume that the category doesn’t actually exist.

So please can we reinstate the previous use of location categories to have ONS and OPS as subcategories for that place.

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I agree with your paragraph:

"...we should make it easier to locate studies that might relate to each other through a place.  The logical point of reference for this is through the location category which is in the subcategory hierarchy from Regions.".

My mother's maiden surname was Jones. With common names like Smith or Jones (or Thomas) the name category could have a lot of studies which are not interrelated. I do see more value identifying the region first (e.g. Ulster Province, Jones Name Study) that might be related to other families nearby.

If this has all been debated before, can someone guide me to the record of the discussion?  

Answer 1

From the One Name Study perspective, I think pages such as these should be linked to the individual name study, not placed in a separate category.  For example:  A page for Wills Family in England would be nested within the Wills Name Study, if the coordinator agrees that it fits with their goals, or under the Surnames category if it does not.

Comments

Thank you Amy.  At present the free space pages do nest within the Names Study (e.g. Wills Name Study).  What I'm suggesting is that a category be established which nests in the name study so that the subcategories for [[Wills One Name Study]] would be [[Wills - Dunsford, Devon]] and [[Wills - Bridford, Devon]] and [[Wills - Perth, Western Australia]].  

They would also nest under the one place studies.  e.g. the subcategories for [[Bridford, Devon One Place Studies]] would be [[Beers - Bridford, Devon]] and [[Talbots - Bridford, Devon]] and [[Wills - Bridford, Devon]] etc.

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I didn't pick that up from your original question.  I'm sorry.  One Name Studies does not categorize by region, eg: Talbot, Devon Name Studies.  Please do not create such a category.  Location categories for name studies are nested under their individual studies.  For example:  Ontario, Crawford Name Study or Devon, Talbot Name Study.