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:
- The standard County, Parish, Local Place hierarchy starting directly below the New Brunswick category.
- A sub-category under NB called New Brunswick Places that would include all Parishes and current local places.
- 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