Location question

Question

I have had the location of some of my profiles changed from XXX County, State to XXX, State. The county designation has been removed. I find it confusing to not give an indication we're talking about a county unless the whole thing is prefaced by a town. For example, Town Name, County Name, State. The problem is, if I'm not familiar with an area, I think it's unclear we're talking about a town or a county when it's just XXX, State.

What is the policy on style in these circumstances?

Comments

Profile?

Answer 1

Definitely change it back -- and send a note to the person who removed the word "county" to alert them to the importance of retaining the word in this context.

In the United States (in contrast to England), we almost never refer to a county by name without including the word "County" in the name. And the distinction can be critically important. There are many situations in the United States of counties and cities within the same state that share a name -- and sometimes the city isn't even anywhere near the county that has the same name. Therefore, it's very important to be specific when we are referring to a county.

Comments

Thanks Ellen. I will do that, it's good advice and makes me less hesitant to call him on this.

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Mmm.  The drop-down menus for place name suggestions do not include the word “County”....

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Just one of many problems with that dropdown place-name-suggestion function.

I figure that the convention that omits the word  "county" when referring to U.S. county names originated as an affectation of 19th-century American genealogical writers who wanted to pretend to be British.

Answer 2

In that case, I'd change it back.

Answer 3

If you look at the Styles and Standards Help page states to "Use their conventions instead of ours"  but I agree with you that adding the county name is the correct way.  In some states there are city/town names the same as the county name and just stating one of them could be confusing.

it also states " This standard is often difficult or even impossible to apply, but it is an ideal that members from all over the world can agree upon."

Answer 4

Hi Jane,

Taking into account that there are readers from around the world in WikiTree, it is very important to designate locations making them as much clear as possible.

Please take a look to this profile:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Arthur-491

The POB and POD in the profile contain the word "County" and also contain the country name.

That might seem superfluous or duplicative, but this way the location is quite clear for anyone in the world.

Comments

If you use the automatic place lookup, that would give you:

Colorado Springs, El Paso, Colorado, United States

Once you are used to this style, it becomes obvious that it is city, county, state, country. Thus you can distinguish Los Angeles, California, United States (the county) from Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States.

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If I indicate the city, then that's how I cite the location, also. It's only without the city that it seems like giving the word "County" is important.

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I won't tell you how long it took me to figure out that, for example, Surry, Surry, Virginia was not a bizarre duplication error but intentional. And it still jars me when I see entries without "County" or "Parish" when applicable & known, regardless of whether or not a city is named. WikiTree is not only international but also has all levels of genealogists - from total novices to family historians to professionals - and I think the benefits of routinely including the full name of a location if you know it outweigh any perceived negatives (I don't see any, but I assume there's a reason why the professionals do it the way they do). And even professionals would be hard pressed to say whether an entry of "Bristol, Virginia" on an unsourced/unconnected profile with no additional information or text is referring to Bristol Parish (which served counties near Richmond, Virginia [Charles City, Henrico, Prince George, and Dinwiddie Counties]) or to the Independent City of Bristol near the western tip of Virginia bordering Tennessee. For these and other reasons, the Virginia Project's guideline is to always include parish and county if known (e.g., St. Paul's Parish, Stafford County, Virginia).

Cheers, Liz

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Thank you for this, Liz. You've certainly given me food for thought.

I feel quite silly asking this, but I don't truly understand what a township is.  I infer from your discussion that if a census record, for example, indicates township that it is critical it be included in the location and I think I need to go back through my profiles to amend them. In my ignorance I thought it was referring to the name of the town.

And is a township the same as a magisterial district? Clearly I need a better understanding of this topic!

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not silly, since I'm not sure what you mean by township & magisterial district.

US Census records have "________ County, ____________State" but not township & magisterial district that I recall (I just checked one page, from 1850, of a record from Hinds County, Mississippi that had nothing writtin in the blank preceding Hinds County, perhaps because the people on the page were not living in a city or town).

Wikipedia's page on "CDP" might be enlightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census-designated_place

Before posting my comment, I went to Wikipedia to check that Surry County had a town named Surry (it does, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surry_County,_Virginia that says the seat of Surry County is Surry).

I used [this Rootsweb page] to verify that Bristol is an independent city. It's also the reference I use to figure out if a named County is in the right time period. For parishes, I use [this USGenWeb page].

Cheers, Liz

 

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ah - found the township discussion... it's in the G2G thread Dennis posted. I think this answer - https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/508271/can-we-be-careful-about-local-location-names-please?show=508273#a508273 - might help.

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oops, sorry. I think the link I posted was in a different discussion than the one Dennis posted. See this answer in that discussion (I think... too many tabs open): https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/458274/is-using-the-word-county-in-location-wrong?show=458484#a458484

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In the United States, town or township, depending on the location, is an administrative subdivision of a county, which is an administrative subdivision of a state (or commonwealth). If you have ancestors who were homesteaders in the midwest, you may find references to township and range (see https://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/a_plss.html or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_(United_States_land_surveying))

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, cities, although they fall within the boundaries of counties, are separate administrative subdivisions. Since these change over time it gets confusing, for example, I live in the City of Virginia Beach which was formerly Princess Anne County, which no longer exists. Of course we can see that with states as well.

In the State of New York, county subdivisions are called towns, not townships, and often need to be distinguished from villages of the same name within the town. For example, in Onondaga County you will find the town of Camillus and in that town you will find the village of Camillus. You might also find a hamlet, or unincorporated place. If you are researching family who lived in a specific town, then you may often see changes in the town names as the administrative boundaries changed (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbridge,_New_York for example).

Tidbit about this example, not sure where I read it, is that Camillus is the only town/village of that name in the US.

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here's an example. The category on this profile needed to be corrected. Birth is "Halifax, Virginia" - but there is both a town & a county, so without research, I can't simply add the location category for Halifax County (possibly I could, since Wikipedia says Halifax is a town in Halifax County).

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-361208

Answer 5

Hi Jane.  For what it's worth, there was another recent thread on this same topic, with several different takes on using the full place name:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/458274/is-using-the-word-county-in-location-wrong

Comments

I didn't see this on my search! Thanks!