Idea for a new One Place Study - layers of information?

Question

After creating my first One Place Study I think it's true to say I've got the bug and I've become an OPS obsessive within a very brief period.

I have a number of ideas for other interesting OPS's and one in particular presents an opportunity for multiple spin-offs.

The place I have in mind is not a town or administrative parish/county. But, within a clearly defined boundary, my 'place' was designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1987, under the same legislation of National Parks in England. It's a National Landscape covering 79 square miles containing scenic villages and historic country houses with classic designed parklands.

There is a government sponsored website for this named area but it concentrates more on the care of the environment and wildlife matters. My OPS would mirror the same area but cover the rich variety of heritage in the form of ancient ruins dating from 1069, 18/19th century buildings, monuments and  whimsical follies. There are numerous interesting people of the past, some of whom are of great historical importance. The oldest family still living in the area has an official family tree with almost every member recorded from 1629 to 2002 – only a small part is currently listed on WikiTree.

Within my new OPS I want to create a list of villages and individual properties linking to separate 'Free-Space Pages'. Some of the properties are of such noteworthiness that they would easily justify an OPS of their own at a later date. Am I correct in thinking that a new OPS could later replace a 'Free-Space Page'? My vision is of a cluster of individual OPS's and 'Free-Space' pages under the umbrella of the original OPS. Do you think this is a workable plan.

Once created I intend to raise awareness among local historical societies and genealogical interest groups, encouraging active participation in the project. I believe that it could be a venture of considerable significance.

Answer 1

While creating multiple nested OPSs within the boundary of another OPS in this manner is technically possible (that is what the OPS Project is doing already), it will undoubtedly introduce unnecessary complexity and redundancy to start out in this manner.

An OPS is a microhistory that would not normally encompass another OPS. It should already be the lowest level of research.

So, if you were to create an OPS for the 79-square mile area (AONB), the intent would be to conduct a microhistory of that entire area. You can always create separate pages to break down the OPS by village, house, or other specific locations, and have help working on those, but later evolving these into separate OPSs would lead to a level of redundancy that is not really needed. This would make the original OPS a shell for holding the other OPSs, replicating the function of the Project and associated categories in a more complex manner since the OPS project (and the categories they help oversee) is already setup to connect them all together.

Essentially, an OPS on a house is already part of a larger framework on a street, neighborhood, community, city, county, state, country, etc., even if those specific OPSs do not currently exist.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Edited to add: This does not mean that layers within an OPS do not make sense. Many OPSs already work in this fashion. However, creating OPSs inside OPSs is the underlying issue.

Comments

Maybe I should think more in terms of growing a cluster of OPS's.

Imagine an area in this example we will call 'Green Hills'. In the Green Hills OPS there is a list of buildings with links to 'Free-Space Pages' that contain more detail, one of which we will call 'The Old Manor'. At some later stage I or someone else thinks there is a bigger story around 'The Old Manor' and creates a new OPS on this particular building. After copying the information over, the original 'Free-Space Page' can be scraped and the link changed to the new OPS.

In this example a cluster of related OPS's can develop. I think working in co-operation with others, clusters would be an interesting way in which localised areas of interest could evolve. There are future opportunities for small clusters to link to form larger clusters.

What are your thoughts on this suggestion?

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Hi Steve S, I love your enthusiasm. it's infectious! Whilst what I am currently doing isn't close to being on the scale you describe, I do get what you mean. I have three OPS's that are interconnected. They are three parishes adjacent to each other that at different times in their history shared different boundaries. In fact, three parishes emerged out of two with the advent of the railways.

They are three separate studies, but it has been important to consider the macro while working on the micro. The best way I have found to do this is to add hyperlinks on a navigation bar to the top of the FSPs. I find this helpful myself when tracking the movement of families over the centuries, and I also try and imagine what it would be like for someone reading them years down the line to help them find the information they need.

Hope this helps,

Susie :-)

Answer 2

Another good idea Steve!

After I finish my cemetery project, my plan is to do a OPS for the village, now you have given me the idea of doing additional OPS for the hamlets and very small places in the vicinity for people buried at the Alton cemetery who did not live in the village.

And then-too many ideas Steve- Cemetery projects for family members of people buried at the Alton cemetery who aren't buried at Alton, but in the very small cemeteries in the hamlets.

I am working with a local heritage group.

Thanks, I now have enough to keep me busy for at least 5 years!