No USA county-level One Place Studies?

Question

My question: Should any USA county space page be marked as a One Place Study? I've been noticing that some have the OPS sticker with information on how to add it to profiles. But some county space pages have been edited to remove One Place Studies information.

For example, the space page for Wilson County, Tennessee was edited in 2022 with the remark "removing category for One Place Studies as this page is not a One Place Study". When I adopted Wilson County in 2016, it was from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:One_Place_Studies/US_History - a page posted by the OPS Project to facilitate adoption of USA county space pages. That page now redirects into a new page under the United States Project ([this page]).

In looking at the One Place Studies category, all the space pages include "One Place Study" as part of the URL. So I'm thinking that the county-level space pages I see with the OPS sticker information shouldn't. Right? Only space pages for a location ending with "One Place Study" are considered a One Place Study? And, since the county-level space pages are part of the state-level projects under the United States Project, they aren't eligible to be a One Place Study? (If I'm understanding the logic correctly.)

I'm asking because I just adopted a county-level space page with OPS info on it, and I wasn't sure whether or not that info should be deleted.

Thanks!

Comments

When I got involved with the United States Project as a Project Leader, I discovered that many U.S counties had free-space pages that had been created with the title "One Place Study," often with very little content. Apparently there had been a misconception about One Place Studies. I think it may have been perceived that any free-space page about a place was a one place study, and members were not aware that counties are almost always much too large to be reasonable topics for one place studies.

More than a few of those county free-space pages still call themselves "One Place Study," but most of them are just pages about the county. I spent a good bit of time editing categories and pages to dispel the notion that the United States project was creating a one-place study for every county in the United States, but many of the free-space pages were privacy-protected and could not be edited without getting access from members who often were reluctant to share the pages they had created.

PS - You've done a brilliant job on that Wilson County page. :-)

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Further to the above, I think the OPS project had supported the idea of OPSs for U.S. counties because the UK-based Project Leaders had received the mistaken impression that U.S. counties were much smaller than UK counties (perhaps equivalent to a civil parish in the UK).

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Thanks Ellen! I had volunteered for Wilson County's space page in 2016, when it was being advertised as an OPS. I've been working on it off and on for years now, but it got off to a great start thanks to Summer (Binkley) Orman.

I've been working the past few days on removing OPS stickers/information from the space pages for Virginia's counties. So far, I've only hit one that's not open (but Virginia has 95 counties, so it'll be a bit longer before I'm done).

Answer 1

While it is technically possible for someone to do an OPS on a US County, that would be mighty complicated and is something we would typically recommend against. An OPS on very small communities could be unmanageable at times, and I couldn't even fathom where to start with a county!

So you would be correct that the county pages are not typically an OPS. Those existing county pages are typically geared more towards "here is some general history and resources" rather than actually trying to reconstruct the population.

But if anyone is actually attempting an entire county OPS, please drop your methodology below so I can reuse it for my microhistory that is complicated enough to wrap my head around. 

Comments

I agree with Steven, but I hasten to point out that there are some U.S. counties that have very small populations and could be good topics for a one place study.

Answer 2

Take a look at these county level OPS pages.

Androscoggin County Maine

Washington County Maine

Somerset County Maine

Hancock County Maine
(A free space page with links to town OPS pages)

 

Comments

Those are some of the county-level "Place Study" pages that I encountered when I got involved with the United States Project. I think those Maine county pages are wonderful informational pages about the counties, and they are good examples of some kinds of content that should be developed as part of an OPS, but (with the exception of some of the town OPS pages for Hancock County) there is little evidence of investigations of the genealogy of these places.

Answer 3

While the OPS category Community, Place Studies says it is for "areas larger than localities. These areas are considered hamlets, villages, towns, etc.", the category for Locality, Place Studies describes localities as "smaller than communities, an area like a street or neighborhood".

To me, that would rule out One Place Studies for Counties, as well as Virginia's Independent Cities (which are considered county equivalents - probably a USA thing, but I'm only familiar with Virginia's ICs). This is probably why the OPS Project removed Wilson County's One Place Studies category in 2022.

That said, I think I found a Virginia County that might make for a good OPS: Dunmore County. It existed for only a few years - 1772 to 1778. It currently has five profiles in its two categories:

• Category: Dunmore County, Virginia Colony
• Category: Dunmore County, Virginia

So perhaps scope rather than designation should be the "yay/nay" factor? While a general rule of thumb that USA counties & independent cities are not candidates for an OPS, exceptions could be made for those counties & ICs that were super small or existed for only a short time?