User talk:Ej2468

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Place names: Plymouth county didn't exist until 1685 [27 October 2011]

And technically neither did Massachusetts, either, as Plymouth County was then part of Plymouth Colony. Yes, we all know the United States did not exist until 1776, etc., etc. But we name places based on what the location was called in 1900 as a convention to avoid ambiguity. Otherwise, the place is indeterminate/unnameable without a date, and if you don't know the exact date perhaps you can't specify the location, or if you change a date you might have to change the place name. If it helps, the location is a link to a Place page and nothing more, and you can give the historical place name in your source citation when you provide the proof, for example, that "they lived in that part of Salem now part of Beverly" even though their birth and death were recorded in the Salem VRs, etc. The place page you are naming in the location fields is where hopefully the history of the place name is fully documented so that any reader curious enough to click on the link will find out that it was part of this entity until year a, part of that entity until year b, etc., etc. --Jrich 00:58, 27 October 2011 (EDT)

I understand that there have been several theories through the years as to how genealogists record location names. For researchers, it makes a difference what the location was at the time of the event. As border lines change, records for a specific location my be located in several different jurisdiction. It would make a difference to me if I were looking at Plymouth county or Norfolk county or no county for source documents.

I apologize if I caused offense. I believed that the original name had been entered incorrectly because of a lack of information.--Ej2468 10:01, 27 October 2011 (EDT)

WeRelate titles its places just as Jrich described. However, WR has options in place for users to record a place as it was at the time of the event. Our help and tutorial pages instructs that users may use the WR place title|their name format for these types of instances. --Jennifer (JBS66) 12:50, 27 October 2011 (EDT)

I'll save the long discussion why aliases should be used sparingly, possibly only when the standard place name is actually misleading. This discussion has been posted several times, and represents only my opinion. About the only use I personally make of it is in adding a qualifier, as in "Hingham, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States|Possibly Hingham, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States", and then because without the qualifier it makes it easy to misinterpret what is intended as a guess, to be a fact. As stated above, deviations from standard names probably need explanations, and potentially proof, and are better handled in source citations, notes, or narratives. Attempts to be historically accurate are rarely done completely or accurately. "Hingham,, Massachusetts, United States" would not be recognizable as an attempt to represent a 1644 location accurately. I also don't see that insisting on historical accuracy would result in much more ease of use or understanding. --Jrich 14:57, 27 October 2011 (EDT)

Deleting pages [29 October 2011]

Hi, I noticed that you renamed a few pages to Xxx. Doing this does not delete the page, we are then left with an empty, unidentifiable page. To delete a page where you are the only watcher, please click on More>Delete. If you are not the only watcher, you can use the Speedy Delete template and include a reason why the page should be deleted. I will delete the pages that you renamed. Thanks, --Jennifer (JBS66) 07:01, 29 October 2011 (EDT)