Please Add Missing Standardized Places

LegacyUser

Benjamin Henry said: Town of Walton, Delaware County, New York, United States has disappeared from Standardized places suggestions. Village of Sidney, Delaware County, New York, United States is also missing.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: That's because the Standard Place name, for consistency, does not use the redundant term "County" (although you can if you want in the display name):

What *IS* strange is that the standards database has the standard entered 2 times with the exact same name and geo-coordinates!



The places team should remove one of these and roll the data over to the other.

LegacyUser

Benjamin Henry said: One of those entries for Walton did say Township a few days ago, but something changed. I have noticed quite a few double entries in the database for other places.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: A township is not at the same level as a county. Most western states do not have townships, only counties. In the United States, the first political level below that of the state is the county.

As Jeff said, you can put whatever you want in the user entered area. The standard for counties in the United States do not use the word county, since it is understood to be the next lower level under that of a state.

LegacyUser

Benjamin Henry said: I only wrote Delaware County above to distinguish it from the Township of the same name.

In New York the Township is important, and both the Village and Town are listed in the standard place chooser for most other locations.

For example, the Town and Village of Delhi, NY:



As I mentioned above, both Walton Village and Walton Township were in the chooser earlier this week and then suddenly disappeared.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Delhi is not a township, but a town. Even though the second option is for a Township, the word township is not used anywhere that I could find with a search of the internet.

The village of Delhi is located within the "town" of Delhi. the "Town" was formed from several other towns in the late 1700s. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi,_... for more details.

Basically, what you've run into is some of the weird naming conventions used in the colonies. This, along with independent cities (another problem with respect to standards) is something that we have to deal with.

What it boils down to is with Delhi, you have to select the appropriate standard for either the Village or the Town(ship). Nothing is missing from the standard list in this case.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Yes, I hesitate to try and amplify Tom's remarks given that I come from the wrong side of the Atlantic, but it's my understanding that in New York (state) there are no townships - instead NY refer to the equivalent level of local government as towns. This must mean that there is confusion between the town (as in cluster of buildings) of XXX and the town (as in what is referred to as a township elsewhere) of the same name, XXX.

It rather looks like to reduce confusion for non-New Yorkers, FS Places have used the term township as a category / type for what NY State call a town.

What I do find curious in that screenshot is that Delhi village appears to be put directly under Delaware county. In the style of the values assigned to / inflicted on place-names elsewhere, FS places would normally have

Delhi, Delaware, New York, United States with type township (i.e. New York-style town)
and
Delhi, Delhi, Delaware, New York, United States with type village.

NB - I am assuming that Delhi (village) is in Delhi town(ship).
And if you think that doubling up on "Delhi" is odd, believe me, you've not seen the worst of it.

LegacyUser

Benjamin Henry said: In New York State, Counties are divided into Towns, which are municipal corporations. Towns in New York are very similar to Townships in other states. This could be fixed, but in my opinion is not as important as not having all the standard places listed.

Cities, Villages, and Hamlets are within Towns.

There are some places in the Standardization database where Villages are listed under Town then County. I think they removed most of these to try to standardize the format with other states, but of course there are still other exceptions, such as the Boroughs of New York City and Independent Cities in Virginia, etc.

There is a good Wikipedia article which discusses the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adminis...

Delhi, NY is an example of where the standardization database seems to be set up correctly, listing both Delhi, Delaware, New York, United States (Village) and Delhi, Delaware, New York, United States (Township).

Sidney, NY likewise is both a Town and Village, but only the Town is listed.
Walton, NY, also both a Town and Village name, now only lists the village.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Townships are listed as a township, for instance, Algonquin Township where I live in Illinois, and is never considered to be a "Town". The same holds true for Michigan.

Sidney, NY, is a Town and a Hamlet, not a village. Both are listed in the standards list.

Walton, NY, is listed twice as a Village. which is a problem.

Your concern involves the Authorities and Standards FamilySearch teams. They welcome your feedback and help to improve FamilySearch Places, but do not always spot all requests and concerns. As such, they have asked us to send requests or concerns involving adding or improving entries in FamilySearch places to PlaceFeedback@familysearch.org.

Questions and requests about places are assigned to the team member best qualified to respond. Once the request is in their queue, the team member will respond in the order received and as time permits.

LegacyUser

Benjamin Henry said: Thanks for your information about where to report these issues.

Sidney, NY is, however, an incorporated Village. See http://www.villageofsidney.org/

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Just an interesting example here. Here are four places in Ohio along with their standard place names:

Vinton County, Ohio, United States
Vinton, Ohio, United States

Vinton Village, Vinton County, Ohio, United States
Vinton, Vinton, Ohio, United States

Vinton Township, Vinton County, Ohio, United States
Vinton Township, Vinton, Ohio, United States

Vinton Village, Elk Township, Vinton County, Ohio, United States
Vinton, Elk Township, Vinton, Ohio, United States

Note that Vinton (the village) is NOT in Vinton township. Furthermore, prior to 1850, Vinton county didn't exist and the township lines were in different places, and they were all located in Athens County. so there is a set of standard place names for these places when they were in Athens County.

As you can see, the term for "County" is avoided, but to make the standard names unique enough they had to use the "Township" nomenclature.

There are situations like this all over Ohio. That's why it is really weird to me that one of the Dehis is not a standard named:

Delhi Township, Delaware, New York, United States.

Frequently I come across villages that have the same name as a Township in a given county, but the village is NOT within the township of the same name.