What are the policies for reconciling duplicate cemetery categories?

Question

I'm looking at a pair of duplicate categories for a single cemetery: Elmwood Cemetery in the town of Bethlehem, New York: Category: Elmwood Cemetery, Bethlehem, New York and Category: Elmwood Cemetery, Bethlehem Center, New York. It's clear to me that one of these categories should be "redirected" to the other one. Since I created one of the categories, I know which one I prefer to keep, but I believe we need to follow policies and protocols.

Does the Categorization Project or the Cemeteries Project have a policy or protocol for determining which category to retain?

For what it's worth, Bethlehem is a legal town, and Bethlehem Center s a place (maybe a hamlet) within the town. I've not seen Bethlehem Center identified as the location of Elmwood Cemetery, but I don't doubt that it's in that particular part of Bethlehem.

Answer 1

Ellen,

I do not think there is a written policy, however practice has been to follow the name as used by Find A Grave, unless a better source shows that Find A Grave is in error. (As an example, the cemetery association secretary, she had been doing the job for 40 years, told me that the name at Find A Grave was wrong for one cemetery name that I worked on.)

In this case it would seem that Category: Elmwood Cemetery, Bethlehem Center, New York would be preferred.

Note that the category page is not set up properly, it should be a sub cat of Bethlehem Center.   Bethlehem Center is identified as a hamlet in the northeast part of the town of Bethlehem at Wikipedia - the article on Bethlehem.  So Bethlehem Center should be a sub cat of Bethlehem.

Comments

Please add a note to the incorrect category to direct people to the correct category.

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Hmm... I think Wikipedia may be mistaken (and perhaps Find-A-Grave followed Wikipedia's lead?). The Town of Bethlehem website lists 7 hamlets within the town, not including Bethlehem Center.

Regardless, confusion is likely regarding the name of this cemetery and the name of the place where this cemetery is located. The Bethlehem Public Library directory of cemeteries  gives the address of this cemetery as Selkirk, New York (Selkirk being one of the 7 hamlets listed on the town website). Google Maps also places it in Selkirk. The cemetery has a website at http://bethlehemelmwoodcemetery.com/ that calls it "Bethlehem Rural Cemetery (Elmwood Cemetery)" and gives its address as Glenmont, New York (Glenmont being another of those 7 hamlets). The FamilySearch page for Bethlehem names Bethlehem Center as one of 17 hamlets in Bethlehem, but places this cemetery in Selkirk.

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Just a word of caution, I have worked with cemeteries that no longer exist, so just doing a Google search to determine the location is sometimes not accurate either.

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Thanks to Philip and Terri for good advice on the Cemeteries project's standard operating procedure.

However, what I thought was a simple question has led me into an unexpectedly detailed investigation of this cemetery. It's not in Bethlehem Center after all. According to Wikimapia, Bethlehem Center is not a legal entity and has no legally recognized boundaries. Furthermore, the map location for Bethlehem Center (centered around the intersection of 9W and Glenmont Road) is about 2 miles north of the map location of Elmwood Cemetery.