Revised Proposal: New Brunswick Locations

Question

Last week I made an initial proposal to reorganize New Brunswick location categories. This is a second revised version incorporating suggestions and changes from discussions with members of the Canada and Categorization projects. Like Doug McCallum’s Prince Edward Island location categories, my hierarchy would include three structures: 

1. The standard County, Parish, Local Place hierarchy starting directly below the New Brunswick category. 
2. A sub-category under NB called New Brunswick Places that would include all Parishes and current local places. 
3. Another sub-category called New Brunswick Historic Places to house any location categories for places that no longer exist or which have had name changes. 

The "Category:New Brunswick" will be a top-level category and should not have profiles placed in it. All Categories will use the Category Information Box to ensure consistent navigation. 

Partial example of tree structure:

• New Brunswick 
  • Albert County, New Brunswick
    • Coverdale Parish, New Brunswick
      • Riverview, New Brunswick
      •  ... 
    • Elgin Parish, New Brunswick 
      • Elgin, New Brunswick 
      • Goshen, New Brunswick 
      • Prosser Brook, New Brunswick 
      • ... 
    • Harvey Parish, New Brunswick 
  • Charlotte County, New Brunswick 
    • Dumbarton Parish, New Brunswick 
    • Grand Manan Parish, New Brunswick 
    • Saint James Parish, New Brunswick 
      • Digdeguash, New Brunswick 
  • New Brunswick Places 
    • Coverdale Parish, New Brunswick 
    • Digdeguash, New Brunswick
    • Dumbarton Parish, New Brunswick 
    • Elgin, New Brunswick 
    • Elgin Parish, New Brunswick
    • Goshen, New Brunswick 
    • Grand Manan Parish, New Brunswick 
    • Harvey Parish, New Brunswick 
    • Prosser Brook, New Brunswick 
    • Riverview, New Brunswick
    • Saint James Parish, New Brunswick  
  • New Brunswick Historic Places 
    • Carleton, New Brunswick 
    • Parrtown, New Brunswick 
    • Portland, New Brunswick 
    • … 

Naming convention will follow that in Nova Scotia and other similar places and follow the theme: Location, New Brunswick. Any location name that occurs more than once within the province would include the county for clarification. All New Brunswick counties have existing categories, and a tier of parishes would be created and linked appropriately. All existing categories for current and historic locations that have profiles in them would be linked into the new tree structure as described. Other locations would be created as needed. Other non-location information or historical information will also use sub-categories to contain them. This should help to keep the top level category manageable. Profiles should not be added to the top level. 

The New Brunswick sub-project would have the right to recategorize profiles placed at the top level. Close collaboration with the Acadia and First Peoples projects would also be desirable. 

A category called “Unknown Location, New Brunswick,” will be used as a catchall for all profiles with no discernable specific location. 

After discussion around categorization of pre- and post- Confederation locations, we decided to initially focus on a single hierarchical structure with the flexibility to later add historic categories as needed. 

• There will be two high-level locations: “New Brunswick” and “Colony of New Brunswick.” 
• Below those, a single set of counties, with links to both top-level categories. (except for Madawaska County, which was formed post-1867.) 
• Below the counties, a single set of parishes, with links to both top-level categories in the case of parishes created before 1867. 
• A single set of city/town/communities, with links to both top-level categories in the case of communities created before 1867. 
• In all cases, county and parish categories would have a template header description indicating the year of creation and links to the former jurisdiction it was created from. 

I'm hoping that this starting structure will allow for later elaboration, potentially including linkages to the First Peoples and Acadie projects. A possible structure for a later more elaborate set of parallel historically-named categories might look like this: 

Colony of New Brunswick <links to> New Brunswick 

    ^^^^                                                        ^^^^ 

County, Colony of New Brunswick <links to> County, New Brunswick 

   ^^^^                                                         ^^^^ 

Parish, Colony of New Brunswick <links to> Parish, New Brunswick 

   ^^^^                                                         ^^^^ 

City/Town/Community, Colony of NB <links to> City/Town/Community, New Brunswick 

For now, historic communities that no longer exist would be linked to their higher hierarchical entities AND to their current equivalent location. (Example: the towns of Parrtown, Carleton, and Portland, which are all part of modern Saint John.) 

I've started a Google spreadsheet to start collecting info on the NB location categories as they currently appear and how they would be fleshed out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XKakPLdgHqOA7nIwVjMJZ4wX83-N3law5WK7eFjo8JI/edit?usp=sharing. 

I've used the Provincial Archives' "Places in New Brunswick” database as a source and it's very thorough and useful: https://archives.gnb.ca/exhibits/communities/Home.aspx?culture=en-CA. 

Wikipedia also provides a good breakdown of New Brunswick’s counties, parishes and the communities included in each of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_of_New_Brunswick; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parishes_in_New_Brunswick. 

I've also been building a New Brunswick Geography Google map for my own research, but it might be useful in this project as well: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1pS_HZiYPqEuMEBL91gZQvRhLe_qWeOws&ll=45.42529926891827%2C-65.79258082375344&z=10

Comments

Is this ready to go now? Are further tweaks needed?

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Well, I tried to check your map but it demanded I get permission first. I guess it isn't public.

 Also does the spreadsheet Barry Sweetman and I did help any? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19msdf4uzxBiyIwCSNUBcrHt15Qp-DXpGxBYLp3YWDO0/edit#gid=1390013396

It is filled with clickable links and notes but it only goes to the province level.

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Thanks, folks. Sorry about that. It looks like the map still needed permission to view, but I'll try to make it public. And thanks for putting that spreadsheet together, Steve. I've found it very helpful.

I think it's ready to go, but I'm not sure if I need any additional approval from the Categorization folks before I start work in earnest. I'll reach out to a couple of folks today.

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Sean, thanks for the permission, love the map.  Would be possible to add a layer to show the historic Acadian places?   Otherwise can I borrow it to start a unique Acadie map?

I've been drafting a locations list for the Acadian Project and see that you have some of them already listed.  I would be happy to add to that.  And have some sources for those names/places.  Are you already working with someone from the Acadian Project team?

Also are you making a distinction that the area of New Brunswick was part of Nova Scotia from 1763 to 1784, then separated out in 1784?

And was it called "Colony of New Brunswick" before the Canada federation in 1867?  I've seen online references both ways with "Colony of" and without.

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You can set it under permissions so anyone with the link can view. Still don't have permissions.

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Thanks, Steven. I've checked the permissions on the map, and I've (hopefully) fixed them so that anyone with a link can view it.

Cindy, I think that's a great idea! Feel free to take what you need from the existing map, and maybe once some of the new info has been added we can combine the layers into a single map. I'd love to work more closely with the Acadian project, but I'm not sure who I should reach out to.

As for distinguishing the various names for New Brunswick over time - there was some discussion of this when I initially put together the proposal, and I believe what we settled on was a single initial hierarchical structure with the flexibility to add historical categories as needed. So there'd be two high level categories - "New Brunswick" (1867-present) and "Colony of New Brunswick." (1784-1867) Perhaps it would make sense to link these to preceding the high level categories for Acadie and Nova Scotia as well.

Below those, there'd only be a single set of counties and parishes for post-1784 New Brunswick - at least for now. Given the much larger difference for how Acadian lands were organized, it might make sense to do those as a separate but linked hierarchy. I don't really have the expertise for that period, though, so I'd be happy to follow the lead of folks who are more familiar with pre-1784 NB geography.

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Sean, it would be great to coordinate with you!  I think I can be the one from the Acadian project unless others want to join in too at this point.  We are starting to discuss this ourselves, and I would be glad to share the draft with you.  I will borrow your map and make a layer for pre 1784 to represent the Acadian period (plus some of the refugee locations  in the later 1700's) including PEI, Cape Breton Island, and obviously Nova Scotia.  Eventually we can figure out how to combine or link them.

How about I send you our current draft of place names for review.  I am converting it into an excel format as I'm hoping that will be easier to work with than the current word table I have.  I would like to capture notes about each place and the source of the info.  The history is so interesting.

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Thanks, Cindy. That sounds like a great idea!

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure what the process is to finalize this proposal, so I'll add two additional 'answers' that folks can use to approve or suggest changes. I've also created two sample parish categories using the proposed structure: Elgin Parish and Salisbury Parish.

Answer 2

Yes, I agree with the proposed structure.

Comments

It looks good to me Sean!  Your suggestions seems to me to be logical, accurate for NB (parishes, etc), and consistent with the approach taken by Brad Foley and Doug McCallum in other Atlantic Canada provinces.

If nobody is raising concerns or making suggestions, I would probably touch base with Brad and/or Doug directly on the process they used to finalize the approach in NS, NFLD and recently in PEI.

Speaking for myself, I'm looking forward to using your approach.

Answer 3

No, I don't agree with the proposed structure. (Please list concerns or suggested changes in the comments)

Comments

I do not have any objections to the proposal BUT I have a conflict in that a lot of places have a similar thing going with categories where you are not to put profiles in the big - all encompassing category - just the subs going down but what if you do not yet know where within a province or state or country for that matter a person was but you do know they were there -

Let me present that more understandably - Ok I start researching a person and find their mother was from Manitoba but you do not know where - only it is the south part of Manitoba - and a guy is there in North Dakota and so that is all you know at first - so to encourage collaboration and narrow down things you want to indicate they are from there - but you run up against the no one in the big state or province category problem

I mean you can still put it into the biography and then when you find out more then add the category and leave it off until then - seems like there ought to be a better way somehow

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Navarro, he has A category called “Unknown Location, New Brunswick,” will be used as a catchall for all profiles with no discernable specific location. to catch those.

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Oh that is perfect for what I was trying to say about limited (hopefully temorarily) knowledge on the place!  Great idea!

Answer 4

There have been no objections raised since this last revision, and since there were no votes against it, we'll begin with creating location categories at the parish level as described in this proposal. Thanks everyone for your input and ideas!

Comments

Thank you Sean, for taking the initiative!