Category Question

Question

I have a question concerning categorization. Dorsey County, Arkansas was created on April 17, 1873. It was named U.S. Senator Stephen W. Dorsey. After he was involved in a national scandal, the county was renamed Cleveland County, Arkansas in 1885.

I'm working on a profile where the records (1880 Census) for a person indicate he lived in Harvey, Dorsey County, Arkansas. There currently is no category for Dorsey County. Should I create Dorsey County category or add him to Cleveland and explain in the biography? On the other hand, when someone later reviews the record, they may question why it says Cleveland instead of Dorsey. It existed for such a short time, it may cause more confusion to list it and be easier to explain.

Answer 1

There currently is no category for Dorsey County.

There is a Dorsey County category here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Dorsey_County%2C_Arkansas

It is linked from the Cleveland County category (under the InfoBox). It should probably be added as a timeline option if it is kept.

 On the other hand, when someone later reviews the record, they may question why it says Cleveland instead of Dorsey.

Multiple schools of thought on this:

1. Categorization is mostly for the benefit of members. We should categorize profiles according to the 'here and now' names. This is the most narrow focused, and easy to implement, but has some major drawbacks (such as mismatched records). This approach is adopted by the Cemeterists Project so we can have one cohesive place to store all of the interred in a cemetery, no matter what name changes it went through.
2. Categorization can be used to help in historical groupings of profiles, using timelines. This can be complicated, dives into Encyclopedic content, can also incorporate boundary changes, and can be confusing to members since it separates profiles for the exact same area.

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For example of #2 - CountyA was renamed to CountyB in 1940. Person A is born, and marries in, CountyA before 1940. They have a child, PersonB, born in CountyB in 1941. PersonA can be in both CountyA and CountyB categories, PersonB would only be in CountyB. Have we separated the family?

The main think you would need to decide, is if Option #2 is worth it for a name change of a county that only existed a few short years.

Comments

Thanks Steven for this educational note. 

Regarding "Multiple schools of thought on this:... etc."
There is a bridge between the note 1) and note 2). 
I prefer to use "Here and now names". It starts from a reference point that is easy to describe and understand.
 

However, I have found that "Here and now" sometimes fails to benefit the members. Sometime the regional boundaries and languages have changed. To find my family connections it is then more useful to use historic categories.