Category assistance please!

+5 votes
159 views

I'm looking for a category for someone who was killed during the American Revolution but DID NOT serve as this individual was not enlisted

Thanks

WikiTree profile: Pierre Lorillard
in Genealogy Help by Richard Shelley G2G6 Pilot (243k points)
retagged by Richard Shelley

1 Answer

+5 votes
There is a category and subcategories for patriotic service, if it is not a loyalist person.

There are not any death categories for them, so it's best to check with the 1776 project.
by Natalie Trott G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
This is a problem with the way the Military and War project categorizes war, in general. There is no place for people who died in war or participated in battle (for example, my ancestor who was killed in a native attack during King Philip's War and another ancestor who drove the attackers away from the settlement) unless they were enrolled in some sort of an officially organized military unit.

Holocaust victims are an exception, but the recognition they receive is because of the Holocaust Project, not Military and War.
Right but you can't go calling it "Killed in Action," which is reserved for people in an official capacity like soldiers, police, firefighters.

There could be a category for such deaths but an appropriate name would have to be agreed upon.
"Died due to military action"

"Deaths due to military action"

They died at x date in y place, the bio can state how they died, like killed by marauding band of rebels or whatever, doesn't need to be a category for everything.

I've included the profile referred to in the initial post. He was killed by Hessians during the British occupation of New York. At this time, I'm using the category of American Revolution.
From what I see, he would merit a French immigrant to New York or New England category for sure.  Don't see data on there to warrant his inclusion in American revolution category, unless that data is elsewhere.  Would need to be put on the profile if so.

As far as his death, there are countless civilians killed in wars, I don't actually think such should have categories created for them, there are just too many in too many parts of the world.  Many of them not crealy identifable due to no body being recovered.
I'm not interested in creating or using causes of death categories. I happen to think that there is genealogical value in using categories for historical events that had major impact in a person's life. I want to be able to see other profiles of people who had similar experiences, to see what sources other people of found and learn more about the event. King Philip's War is one such event, but its category was set up (I've not looked recently to see if this changed) to exclusively hold profiles of military combatants.  This was a 1600s war between Native Americans and English settlers, it had a big effect on many people who were neither English soldiers nor Native chiefs. Am i alone in thinking that a "war" category should be able to accommodate civilians and unorganized militia fighters, in addition to military people?
you do have a point that a war as a whole should have more than just military units as sub-categories.  There were after all civilians galore who lived or died through it.  But where do we draw the line?  And how do we categorize them so they are shown to have been there, not necessarily in a military capacity?

Looking over the category structure for the American revolution, I would be inclined to put him under Category:Battle of Long Island, since that is in fact the battle where he lost his life.  That he was a non-combatant should have no relevance to his inclusion in this category.  There are subcategories for the military units involved, so any soldiers would go under those, not in the main category.

Does this make sense to you?
If Lorillard was killed in the Battle of Long island, that category would make sense to me (although not necessarily to the Military and War crew), but it only should be added if the text of the profile includes that information.

As far as I know New York city consisted of Long Island at that time, the text of the profile just says killed by Hessian mercenaries of the British during the British occupation of New York City  

The text does state that and the only source is wikipedia. I looked there and this fact is supported by a plaque placed at an NYC park. I'm sure historians have verified these things, but the park site contains no source for that information.

that is for sourcerers to figure out then.  wink

And at that time, the city of New York probably referred to Manhattan Island, not Long Island.

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