Is it me or is this bonkers

Question

Do we really need to add Australia to South Australia or Western Australia?

Comments

Can you provide the context for the question? Do you mean Location Fields? Categories?

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It seems redundant to me. Australia can be a State, country or continent, although I have never heard South Australia or Western Australia reference any location outside of the country or continent. As others point out context and time makes a difference.  

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It is not redundant.  It is required.  One is a State, the other is the Country.

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Don't think I agree with you there. All the information required is in the first two words, why add more? The only legitimate argument, in my view, is as stated by Ros Haywood below, if it helps a search engine. Otherwise superfluous.

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Cheers Derek.

My line of thought is the same. If all information is provided in two words, then why should we add a third?

The only response seems to be that we need to satisfy the Wikitree search engines.

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I have often thought similar, but got used to it, or changed my mind.  Even thought it seems so simple, I think we have to be consistant with using the town name, (maybe County or district) state, and country name--no matter how redundant it might seem.

Maybe I propose changing the name of the state of Queensland, Australia to "Queensland Australia, Australia"?

Hmmm, thinking of New York, New York, USA--should we eliminate one of the New York's?

My Dad would say to me often, "that's just the way it is--get over it"

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I will only write New York, New York in a location field.

Now the debate isn't much about precision. It is more about collecting the folk to reach a common meeting point to find their families.

I recently merged an Argentine category "Entre Ríos" with the English "Entre Rios". The small difference was the accent above "i" in Rios. The impact was that half of the profiles were in the English version and and half were in the Spanish. This did not help one member of a family find another in the same state.   

At a different level of debate I would prefer to use the simple <city><state> and drop one of the New Yorks. In Australian location categories there has been some care to avoid duplicate names so <city><state> works well. On the other hand If you look at Poland, then you find many villages with the same name something like <city><county><state> is reasonable.

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Steve, just a note - those categories were not merged. They are mirrored.

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No Steven - in Argentina I kept the Spanish as the simplest stream.

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Maybe I propose changing the name of the state of Queensland, Australia to "Queensland Australia, Australia"?
 

commented by Michael Schindler 

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Except, there is no state of Australia called Queensland Australia.  The state name is Queensland.  The country name is Australia.  Thusly, Queensland, Australia (Queensland comma Australia), as with New South Wales, Australia, and Victoria, Australia.

New York City, New York County, New York, United States designates the different entities.  You could leave off the county and the word City, but how would people know if the place was New York City, or some other place in New York County in the state of New York?

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@Steve, I am not sure we are talking about the same thing. There are two categories, one in English, and one in Spanish. They are mirrored with the Aka template. They are not merged.

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@Steven, we are talking about the same thing. But different times.
You are correct that there are now two parallel language categories mirrored by AKA.
Before the AKA was created there were two categories - one in English and one in Spanish - both held about 6 profiles.
I moved the profiles out of the English one into the Spanish and asked for the English version to be deleted. Someone like Margaret created the AKA instead - which is perfectly OK.

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@Steve, it wasn't me, according to the changes log for both English and Spanish versions, the AKA template was added by you back in February 2023.

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No. It wasn't me. I deliberately did not add AKA in February 2023.There are some glitches in the Wikitree record keeping system.

P.S.I am starting to worry about my early dementia. This debate was fairly clear to me in February 2023. I know that I did not create the parallel language categories for Entre Rios. It was not me, not you and possibly the Argentine Christina.

Answer 1

I assume you are talking about BDM location fields, as none of the Australian location categories include Australia in the category name.

To expand on what Melanie, Ros have said, Australia has 6 states and 2 territories, South Australia and Western Australia are two of the states, Australia is the country. The same as we say "<town>, Tasmania, Australia", we say "<town>, South Australia, Australia".

You can read more about the Australia Project guidelines for BDM location fields on this page. 

Comments

PLUS Jervis Bay Territory and External Territories ... :-)

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Thanks for your good work Margaret.

I watch this type of debate with a lot of interest. I learn a lot from the Australia Project examples. I try to think how my experience can be usefully applied in different regional projects around the world.

Answer 2

Yes, I think you do.  Remember, it's not just people who look at these things, it's the computer system and search engine - which needs a country.

Comments

Hi Ros. You make a good point that this only only exists for the computers and search engines.
Common humans find this addition of Australia redundant above Western Australia and South Australia.

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Common humans find this addition of Australia redundant above Western Australia and South Australia.

commented by Steve Thomas 

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Some humans may have a problem with it, many do not.  My entire life, and even before that, it has been Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, and Perth, Western Australia, Australia, and so said the atlas I used in school that had been used by at least two generations before mine.  (If I recall correctly, it was published in the 1920s.)

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Very true Melanie. I just see the higher level category of "Australia" as redundant in this category structure.

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Wouldn't it be a bit strange if the categories for Western Australia and South Australia (as states) weren't under category Australia? What would be their parent? Oceania?

Or are you saying the category "Australia" is redundant altogether? What about the 65 sub-categories, what would be their parent?

Answer 3

It rather depends on the time frame. If it's before 1 January 1901 then no. After 1 January 1901 - Yes.

Technically Commonwealth of Australia as a country didn't exist until 1 January 1901 when the colonies merged.

If you want to be historically correct anything prior to 1901, technically should be listed as Colony of.... or Province of - depending on dates.

My cheat sheet

Colony of New South Wales - 1788 to 1900

Colony of Western Australia (also known as Swan River Colony) 2 May 1829 to 1900

Colony of Victoria - 1 Jul 1851 to 1900

Province of South Australia 1836 to 1856

Colony of South Australia Oct 1856 to 1900

Van Diemen's Land - to 1856

Colony of Tasmania 1856/7 to 1900

Colony of Queensland - 6 June 1859 to 1900

Australia - 1 Jan 1901

Comments

1817 - 1824 - 1830 - 1901 - 1949  - 1984.

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was the last year 1984 or 1948?

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Amanda - caveats apply.

ACT didn't happen until 1938 - prior to that it was the Federal Capital Territory.

NT is a can of worms.

Lord Howe Island didn't become part of NSW until 1855 (prior to that it was just another random Crown possession).

There are probably others...

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My cheat sheet is just that for very quick reference particularly when trying to clean up suggestions. It was meant as an example.

You're right Mark, Northern Territory is a can of worms but as I rarely see or work on those profiles I haven't had to research what or how to list it as a place.

Primarily the original question was about the need to list Australia after South Australia or Western Australia and the answer is depends on the timing if you want to be accurate.

As Wikitree is international, I believe, accuracy is required.

Wikitree doesn't list our colonies because FamilySearch doesn't recognise them and that's were our list of places come from.

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I don't think you will find any reliable reference that South Australia changed from Province to Colony in 1856.

The two terms appear to have been used somewhat interchangeably, but if they had a semantic distinction, the province was the geographic territory and the colony was the social construct of British subjects (including migrants from Prussia/Germany) living in the province.

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Scott, I agree that Province and colony of South Australia were used quite interchangeably.

I haven't looked after 1856
Province of South Australia was the official, government name in this "Certificate of Naturalization" issued to Carl Schindler in 1852.   https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/b/b2/Schindler-1125-2.jpg

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Hi Steve.

One of my family history books has a reproduction of "Letters of Naturalization" dated 3 February 1874. They are granted under an Act of the Parliament of South Australia and also say he lived in the Province of South Australia and are signed "under the Public Seal of the aforesaid Province", signed by the Chief Secretary (rather than Colonial Secretary).

The exclusion is updated to "...except the capacity of being a Member of Parliament of the aforesaid Province until after a residence in the aforesaid Province for the full period of five years". This seems unnecessary as he had immigrated in 1858 aged 23.

So if anything, self-government removed the word Colonial, but retained Province.

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I can assure you both Scott and Steve that I did my research properly when I created the cheat sheet.

I don't remember where I got the original South Australian info. I do remember that originally Province was used to distinguish SA as a colony with no convicts.

I'm sorry to say I'm not well as the moment but will find the source when I can

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Cheers Amanda. I am sure that you put a lot of research into your cheat sheet.

Another piece I have just found are references to the 1856 Constitution of South Australia - which still mentions the Province
https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-42.html

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WikiTree's guiding principle for location names is "use their conventions instead of ours". But who are the they in "their"? My belief is that "they" are the people we are documenting, not officialdom.

The formal name of the country since 1901 has been "Commonwealth of Australia", as Amanda mentioned. But nobody uses this term in day-to-day speech, and we don't use it in WikiTree location fields.

Similarly, people in parts of the continent in the nineteenth century, outside formal legal situations, would not have thought of themselves as being in some colony or province, but just have spoken of "South Australia", "Victoria", and so on.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this. Fortunately the Australia Project location guidelines cited by Margaret have been wisely formulated so as to allow us to agree to disagree. Profile managers are free to choose from a variety of specified location name formats, and others should not alter such choices. These guidelines render arguments on the topic moot.

Answer 4

Seeing as no one has linked to it yet, here are the Australia Project Guidelines on Place Names.

But what Ros said about wikitree being a database is very true. This is, for example, why placing commas is also important between town/state/country. Database queries do their best to work around all the varied formats, but the more consistent and structured the better.

Also using Colony of et cetera is purely a personal choice and is overall a minority practice.

If you want to see actual usage of (some of) the myriad variations by frequency you can look here.

I support and encourage consistency in placename usage but do not think it should be proscribed.

Answer 5

No, it's not just you, lots of people have the same problem.

My guess is that the problem stems from the benefits we all get from WikiTree:

• we get a place to store the results of our genealogical research
• we can see how we are related to other people around the world (albeit imperfectly, because so many people are missing from the database)
• we get help and encouragement in our research from other genealogists

and all of those benefits come for free. So I'm guessing that it's all too easy to conclude that WikiTree exists for "my" benefit, and "I" have no duty towards anybody else who might be using it, either now or in the future.

Now, I have come across any number of example of this attitude, expressed in various ways:

• There are a number of unconnected branches on WikiTree where all the names on all the profiles are "Anonymous Anonymous" (most, if not all, of which have no dates or locations). It's kind of hard to escape the conclusion that some people use WikiTree as a free space to store their data, but have absolutely no interest in collaborating with anybody else (possibly not even with their own relatives), but I'm pretty sure that they'd still need to keep some kind of record with the names, dates, dates, and locations for each person, so I'm not really sure what benefit they get out of taking up space on WikiTree's servers.
• I've also seen multi-generational family trees where every single profile, from the youngest to the oldest, has the privacy set to Public or higher. Some of these profiles stretch through seven generations (possibly more -- it's not like I've examined every profile on the site), so I'm pretty sure that it's not possible for every person in that branch to be living, and thus need to have their privacy protected. I suspect that, in many cases, the oldest profiles are for people who have been dead for long enough that, by WikiTree rules, their profiles must be set to Open, but people get around that by not listing dates. (Although now you have to have a date to create a profile, so people can't get away with that anymore.)
• But I have also come across innumerable profiles where the location is next thing to useless. Like "Richmond". (I'm pretty sure that every U.S. state has at least one Richmond, and some of them probably have two, just to make sure.) I'm sure that, when people are creating profiles, they're probably thinking something along the lines of "Well, I know where I'm talking about, so nothing else matters." But a quick glance through the profiles with suggestion 604 (birth location too short) should demonstrate how useless those profiles are to anyone other than the person who created them. 

So I very much agree with the rule requiring that all location fields include the country name, and I would like to encourage more of the attitude of thinking more about others, and not just about "me", when creating or editing profiles. WikiTree is supposed to be the site where genealogists collaborate, and one way to collaborate is to innclude all of the information somebody else (not just "me") needs for the contents of a field to be unambiguous.

Comments

Nice rant but I'm not sure it's relevant to this question. It is patently obvious that e.g. South Australia is in Australia, it couldn't possibly be anywhere else. Now further up the thread, Ros Haywood said that even if it does seem daft, the second 'Australia' is there so that search engines can pick up the country and do what they will with it, which is a fair point and one I will take on board. At first glance however, it does appear to treat the reader as an idiot.

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I don't know whether to laugh or cry reading some of these responses. Margaret Haining has provided the correct answer to a "Bonkers Question". South Australia, Australia is not daft, that is the correct name. Western Australia, Australia is not daft, that is the correct name.

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But there is correct and there is sensible. If you asked somebody from London where they came from, they would probably just say 'London' but very occasionally they might say ,London, England' to differentiate from London, Ontario. If you asked the same question to somebody from Perth, they would almost certainly reply 'Perth, Western Australia' not 'Perth, Western Australia, Australia' which would sound extremely pedantic.

Anyway, as I said the search engine argument is well made and for that reason I will use both e.g. Western Australia, Australia even though it grates.

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Actually, when talking to an Aussie, we might say Adelaide, but to a non-Australian it becomes the full thing - Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
When talking to an Australian we might say "Brizzie" (which we write as Brissie), and they would know what we mean.  To any foreigner we would likely say "Australia, actually, Brizbn, Queensland", or "Australia, actually, a little place called Tallem Bend, South Australia".  When explaining the birthplace of a family member I say "Osbourne Park, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, Australia" (unless I am speaking with a fellow Aussie).
I was taught early on in my life to not expect everyone else to understand the shorthand in my brain, and to fully explain so there are to be no doubts - and that goes for place names with which I may be very familiar, but they may not.

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London, Ohio

Paris, Kentucky

Bellefontaine, Ohio

Glasgow, Alabama

Albany, New York

You are cherry picking something because it is locally used and therefore you think it is well known. Wikitree is global, with researchers routinely looking at place names unfamiliar to them, and we want this information to make sense not just now but to our descendants.

Use the fullest, most accurate place names.

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To any foreigner we would likely say "Australia, actually, Brizbn, Queensland", or "Australia, actually, a little place called Tallem Bend, South Australia".

When I was working in Hong Kong, I asked one of the Ozzie volunteers where she was from, and she replied, "Toowoomba!" Apparently, I was supposed to conclude that Toowoomba is the most important city in Australia, and places like Sydney, Canberra, Queensland, Melbourne, Adelaide, etc. are all just suburbs of the thriving metropolis that is Toowoomba.

Answer 6

Modern mail sorting machines don't look at the address anyway they look at the Postcode.
Then manually sorted for delivery at the delivering Post Office.

Answer 7

While South Australia, Australia seems redundant, not only search engines rely or need the country name in addition to the double barreled state name a number of Wikitree Apps also need the country name, eg  Sourcer needs the 2nd Australia in order to give Trove (Aussie Newspapers) as a search option, just as it needs New Zealand to search on a province.
 Our brain recognises South Australia as Australia, computers do not unless programed to do that.

 And there are plenty of parts of the world where people may not know that West Australia is not a separate country, and at one stage it nearly didn't join the Federation, and could have remained independent like the 7th state named in the constitution.

Comments

Good summary. I agree WA was the last to join the Federation. It could be the first to secede.

Answer 8

Strictly, the ", Australia" is unnecessary or wrong for events prior to 1901, but I usually accept it in the data fields and never write it in the prose, regardless of timeframe. I also never write "Colony of..." as that does not appear to be how anyone ever spoke or wrote, any more than they'd write "State of South Australia" now.

There are definitely references to "the Australian colonies" before moves to federation, when referring to them as a group, and I think I've seen references to "emigrating to Australia" without being specific about which colony in British/European 19th century publications.

My other pet hate is people who just use two-letter abbreviations and make the reader try to guess where they mean, for examples:

WA	Western Australia	Washington
SA	South Australia	South Africa
PA	Panama	Pennsylvania
CA	Canada	California
AZ	Azerbaijan	Arizona

Sometimes it's a state, sometimes a country.

Comments

It is human nature to assume that others know what what we know, like the examples Scott has made, or that the clerk made when they noted the Baptism of John to John and Sarah. Everyone in the town knows John and Sarah!

In computer systems that are used to record world wide historical data, completeness and accuracy should be a priority. It may seem bonkers but the system needs all the entries completed. We will never improve the matching algorithm if they are not. This is completely different when taking to someone because we assume they will fill in the blanks. Computers don't automatically fill in the blanks.

I just hate it when looking a possible matches when the place is blank or has 2 character entries that I have no idea what they are. People are doing the same as the clerks in 1776 because they believe everyone should know what they entered. Yes, paper was scarce so they used minimal space. That is not the case with digital storage. Please enter the whole thing even if you think it is redundant.

Answer 9

Could we have just "South" for South Australia? No, because we use officially allocated place names.  There was somebody on the Ryerson Index who thought that "city" without more, meant _his_city, which was Sydney.  My capital city was Melbourne.  Ambiguity arises.  The recent discussion about St Helena is a case in point. Nobody of that name is in the Penguin Dictionary of Saints, but there are several places named after her.  In this case, the choice was between Napoleon's island and a place in South Africa.  Another researcher had one answer (sourced), I chose the other.  We both had adequate reasons.