Category May Be Wrong

Question

I was born in Gary, Indiana, and lived in Northwest Indiana for most of my adult life. I recently updated a cousin's profile and another member added categories (thank you!). I've been a bit remiss in adding categories, so I've been reading through categories, trying to understand.

Andrean High School was built in 1959 and was located in Gary, Indiana. However, in 1971, the Town of Merrillville incorporated. So from 1971 onward, Andrean High School has been located in Merrillville, Indiana.

When my cousin graduated in 1968, Gary would be the correct location.

I also noticed that Andrean is the only school listed for Lake County, Indiana. Purdue and Indiana Universities are not even listed. None of the other high schools (and there are many for each major city) are listed.

I think the Gary designation should either be removed or years 1959-1970 should be added. Note: Keep getting error messages when I try to link the category below so I linked it in the text.

Comments

This is an interesting situation. 

Regarding the choice of parent categories, there's a straightforward solution: Both Gary and Merrillville should be parent categories for this school.

The school category name is a bigger challenge. A high school category name should include a location, but this school has two locations. And if we choose one of the possible names, we can't use redirects to send people to the correct category. Wikitree can redirect a profile name to a new name for that profile, but doesn't have a mechanism to redirect a category to a new/different category name. (The difference between profiles and categories also helps explain why you can't link your question to a category.)

I think the best solution would be to:

1. Name the school category either Andrean High School, Indiana or Andrean High School, Merillville, Indiana (with preference for the latter name)
2. Put the school category in the parent categories for Gary, Merrillville, and Lake County Schools.
3. Put notes on the category pages for all three parent categories to explain that the school was in Gary from 1959 to 1971, but has been in Merrillville ever since that city was incorporated in 1971.

Hopefully, anyone searching for Andrean High School or wanting to add its category to a profile will recognize the category Andrean High School, Indiana or Andrean High School, Merillville, Indiana as the correct one. And since it was only part of Gary for 12 years, there's no particular reason to choose to leave that city's name in the category name. Categorizing it by its modern location would be consistent with the way that university categories are named by the institutions' current names, not their historic names.

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Hello Ellen,

Thanks for answering. Who would be the one to make your suggested solutions?

Hmm, I thought I asked this question in Tech, but I see it's now in Help. I also used tech for the search tag.

I'd like to see these universities and their campuses listed for Lake County.

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Please use one on a profile, Diane. Thanks!

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Diane, just so you know: I moved this to WikiTree Help because categorization is not a Tech issue. Categorization is handled mostly by Categorization Project members (like Natalie), not techies. And your "tech" tag didn't take because that tag has been disabled.

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Thanks for explaining Ellen

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Natalie, I'm confused. Use what on profile? I thought you meant IUN but, when I just looked at the list, I couldn't find IUN only IU Bloomington. Since I graduated from IUN I was going to add it to my own profile.

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That's what I mean! If you want the category added, just add it to a profile!

[[Category:Indiana University Northwest]] It will give you a red banner but click SAVE ANYWAY. Then open the category and add the parent categories of [[Category:Lake County, Indiana, Schools]] and[[Category:Gary, Indiana]]

Then save.

Answer 1

Purdue and IU main campuses are not in Lake County, and there is no category for the satellite campuses because they have not been added to a profile yet. (I added both categories since I have close family who attended those main campuses.) I don't think any IUPUs are there either.

We don't "pre-create" school categories and they are added as needed when a profile is created or edited.

I will change Gary Andrean to Andrean and locate it in Merrillville, since that is where it is now. With colleges, it's usually a name change, not a place change,so this is slightly different. I think it's best to use one category and give it both towns as parent categories, with the explanation in the category page.

Comments

Thanks Natalie - BUT Andrean is not in Gary and was never inside the city limits which end at 54th Avenue. Andrean's address is 5959. Before Merrillville incorporated, it did have Gary for its mailing address. Because it is a Catholic school it is part of the Diocese of Gary.

At one time there had been an IUPU in Merrillville, but it seems to have closed. There is an Indiana Wesleyan there now (where IUPU was).

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I originally visited the profile due to a red-linked category, looked up some information and found the name of the school in his obituary. I added the category based on what it said in the article. [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35401776/william_mathews_death_vietnam/] I should have looked for more information on the school.

I usually use the address on a school's website as the location. So, you said it was in Gary, then you said it wasn't.

I renamed it to Merrillville, so I can remove Gary as a parent if it was never in Gary. 

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Thanks again Natalie. The school was never inside the city limits and only had Gary as a mailing address for a short period of time. At that point in time, it was referred to as Gary Andrean, but hasn't been called that in decades.

It's sort of like those who live on the western edge of the city on Grant Street. Those on the east side of Grant are within the limits; those on the west side are Calumet Township but have a Gary mailing address.