Thank you SJ for starting this discussion and all who have contributed.
I appreciate and agree with Kitty’s comments.
When I look at WT’s other U.S. colonial projects, their scope is based on geography and time.
* PGM
* New Netherland Settlers
* New Sweden
* Southern Colonies (an umbrella for a number of subprojects)
If we are defining a top-level colonial project for Penn's Settlers for anyone that sailed on a ship commissioned by Penn, we're not grouping people based on geography and only on the short period of time they were on the boat together. No doubt these people were often related or became friends, but we can retain the connections with ship categories. Another reason to define them by geography is that the PA and NJ colonies had distinct political structures, so primary and secondary sources for NJ settlers have no overlap with Pennsylvania’s jurisdictions.
I would continue to define a project for Penn's Settlers as covering anyone who settled in Penn's colony--aka Pennsylvania and initially Delaware. That could include anyone who resided in or owned land in Pennsylvania, even if they later relocated to and/or also owned land in what became New Jersey.
Settlers in the Jersey colonies would fall broadly under the New Jersey Project and also sub-projects as appropriate. Many West & East Jersey founders are already protected by the Quakers Project and in East Jersey by NNS and New Netherland Descendants 1674-1776. If you interested in the history of the proprietary period, I am reading this and find it helpful: Klett, Joseph. “Understanding New Jersey’s Geography in the Proprietary Period.” Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey (GMNJ), Vol. 89, No. 4 (December 2014)
There are a few subprojects for colonial New Jersey listed here. Some ideas for other colonial NJ subprojects
--New Jersey Founders—a blanket project that could cover all of Proprietary New Jersey (pre-1703); there’s a lineage society based on this distinction
--church/meeting based projects like Old Tennent Church (congregation was Scots-Irish Presbyterian) or Newton Monthly Meeting, Salem Monthly Meeting, etc.
--Fenwick's Colony
--city based projects like Burlington, Perth Amoby, or Trenton
--Cape May Project (founded mostly by PGM descendants)
I volunteered to coordinate the New Jersey Project and first order of business was some gnarly pre-1700 help requests, so I have spent my time building the New Jersey Sources guide we can point to for reference. The Primary Sources section is mostly complete and I am now combing through the State Library’s compilations of print works for NJ counties. Project management takes a lot of work and I'm not able to take this on solo. If you could support the NJ project as a co-coordinator or would like to start a subproject, I will be thrilled.
Again, thank you for this discussion. I love to see us research and connect communities in addition to personal trees, this is one of the things that makes Wikitree so special. Peace.
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