Project: One Place Studies

Categories: One Place Studies Project | Volunteers Needed

Welcome!

About

A One Place Study (OPS) is a study of the genealogy and history of a specific place.

"An OPS researches the residents of a particular place by gathering a full range of historical records, memorabilia, and stories that mention those individuals, and analyze them to gain insights into the social and economic workings of that place...and would generally have as its aims to identify local families and analyze issues like occupational structure, life expectancy, and geographical mobility." [Society for One-Place Studies]

Mission

Our Mission is to support and guide those who choose to do these studies. To promote connections of families and their ultimate connection to our Global tree.

Goal

Our goal is to work towards our vision for the future, where every place, however small, joins with its neighbors and finally, place by place, creates a country. Whereas each OPS will be primarily under the Country Project, we will correlate each OPS and, in the future, create a genealogical map of the world.

How to Join

Are you interested in the One Place Studies Project?

Project Leaders: Azure Robinson, Sandy Patak, and Amy Gilpin
Answer our G2G welcome post to join the One Place Studies project and get a badge.
Add One_Place_Studies to your followed tags.
We use G2G and #one-place-studies on the WikiTree Discord Server for communication.
Check out our maintenance categories for our project needs, then jump in and start helping!
Look at one of the One Place Studies project's example profiles to see what we hope for in profiles that are part of our project. Other excellent examples from our project and others can be found in the Examples Gallery.
One Place Studies Project Member List.
Here is what our members are working on.

Team Leader:
Pam Fraley

Family Activity Feed for WikiTree-121

Getting Started

First Steps

Check the alphabetical list of One Place Studies to make sure somebody else isn't already studying your Place. If they are, send them a message asking how you can contribute. If you see a study for a large area (County, Parish, Landkreis, etc) don't hesitate to ask to start a smaller study within that area, it can be linked back to the larger study and vice-versa.
- For a list of One Place Studies grouped by country, see: One Place Studies.
If nobody is studying your Place, send us a message with the details for the place you would like to study.
- If your One Place Study is in the United States: Please review your proposed study location carefully, as it may not actually be a One Place Study; it may be the sort of informational page covered by the United States Project. These types of pages can be linked into the relevant State One Place Study Page as they have been carefully worked on to provide a treasury of information and research aids. If this is the type of page you are making please ask for it to be nested.
Sign up
Once your One Place Study is nested your badge will be awarded.

*If you have an older study that doesn't have the project as a co-profile manager, please add it to the trusted list: wtoneplacestudies@googlegroups.com

Starting Your Research

The research involved in a one-place study will vary according to the records available in that place. Here are some records you will probably want to research for your study:

Vital records (eg. birth, marriage, and death records)
Parish/church records (eg. baptism, marriage, and burial records)
Censuses
Land records
Cemeteries (If you live near your place of interest, you may want to photograph the local cemeteries! Check out the Global Cemeteries Project to get involved.)
School yearbooks

To find out if there are profiles in WikiTree that may be in your One Place Study, use the Search link located at the bottom of every page.

Useful Resources

Wikidata: Item Q1713174, en:Wikipedia gives a nice comprehensive article on doing a One Place Study
Trace My American House
One Place Studies Directory
- Official Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Society for One-Place Studies
- 10 Steps to a One-Place Study
- Official Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Choosing a Place (pdf)
Kirsty Gray of The Society of One-Place Study has a couple of YouTube videos on beginning an OPS:

Sample One Place Studies

Here are some examples so you can take a look at what has been done:

Buildings and Institutions

Category:Building and Institution, Place Studies
These studies cover houses, schools, churches, asylums, etc.

Houses

Institutions

Cemeteries

Category:Cemeteries
In November 2021, Cemeteries were added as a type of study to the project!
In July 2022, Cemeteries project became an OPS sub-project.

If you are interested in doing a page about a monument or memorial, the Cemeterist Project (see Cemetery Pages) would be the place for this, and there is a category structure for them here: Monuments and Memorials

Example cemetery pages:

Localities

Category:Locality, Place Studies
These are studies smaller than communities, but larger than one building, an area like a street or neighborhood.

Streets

Ganderbrook Lane Raymond, Maine

Communities

Category:Community, Place Studies
These studies are areas larger than localities.

Towns

Towns for a time period

Oversize Areas

Prior to June 2022, there were studies as large as a County, Landkreis, etc. For these, we recommend having the county, be a main page, that allows for smaller studies to be created/worked. Here is an example of what that would look like: