Category talk:Ohio cities, villages, and townships

"Cities, villages, townships" category. Something I am not in favor, considering this can blow up into unmanageable category. I recall a guideline to keep a category to contain less than 200. Dsammy 16:00, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I initially thought this would be a good idea, seeing as there is an Ohio counties category...but you make a good point...there could easily end up being hundreds, if not thousands of articles here. I will ponder whether this category has any useful purpose or not... I will say it was useful in knowing whether the names of each were appropriately standardized, as someone had gone through and added an article for each of the 18 townships in Columbiana County and had not given the articles names that would not conflict with other townships throughout the country and even throughout the state. I am interested in opinions on this... - LeeTHawkins 16:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Another thought - if 200 is the max guideline for categories, then how are you handling the state civil war categories? It seems that almost every state has at least 200 of these...
 * Also, I have to say that I am not entirely comfortable with having individual articles for each and every city, village, and township (at least in Ohio)...it seems a bit silly, especially when a large number of them don't even have 1000 people living in them and probably never have. I can see having individual articles for major cities, like Cleveland and Cincinnati, and cities with a long history, like perhaps Marietta or Warren, where a lot of early Ohio history hatched, being as both those cities were "gateway" cities like Independence, Missouri was for the Oregon Trail. I do not, however, see a good reason to break things up to a township level unless there's a good reason for it--not even every city has a lot to write about that wouldn't fit nicely on the county page, or on a special branch county page (like "Columbiana County Cemeteries" for example). Again, I am interested in opinions... - LeeTHawkins 16:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You brought up several things at once. There is already state/national civil war categories and we aren't having problems with this. Ditto for Oregon Trail. Townships are something else from genealogy point, are the records referring to the township or is it to the village of same name in same township? This is difficult to sort out. And as for itty bitty places, as long as there are records for that particular place, there will be a page, which bring up another problem, determining the priority of naming the pages (normally the cities do not require county name included in the url naming. Beyond this, evaluation of information is needed to determine. Townships with common names have to have county included. Uncommon ones do not normally require it. Washington Township is the one in particular that is practically in almost every state in northeastern USA. Can count on many of them in Ohio as it is in Iowa, too. Dsammy 17:22, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about everywhere else, but municipal divisions in Ohio can be complicated. I'll try to break it down...


 * When Ohio first began to be settled, it was surveyed into counties and townships. Cities and villages did not exist until chartered, so every single square mile of Ohio was part of a township. Most of the time, townships stayed in one piece, but there are plenty of townships that have been split in half to balance out a county - sometimes these halves were passed back and forth between counties as they were created.
 * Eventually, cities and villages were chartered. Most of the time these took up only a part or one or more townships, and the land within their borders no longer was part of the original township. In many cases, also, the villages and cities may have kept the name of the original township, so that, even today you still have the City of Elyria and Elyria Township. In some cases, like the City of North Ridgeville, the entire original township (in this case Ridgeville Township) was completely annexed by the city and ceased to exist.
 * There is an exception, at times, to this with certain villages in Ohio. Some villages work like cities and take over the area within their borders from the township, such as the Village of LaGrange; however, there are what are called exempted villages as well, such as the Village of Wellington, which are still also a part of their original township, though they do not have within their limits the entire township.
 * To make matters yet more complex with townships, in some cases they split into separate townships to have their own government. An example of this is when Brook Park Township split off from Middleburg Township in Cuyahoga County, eventually being incorporated as the present-day City of Brook Park. Some townships fractured into many, many pieces, such as Rockport Township in Cuyahoga County, which at one point was split into the villages of Rocky River, Fairview, and Parkview, the city of Lakewood, the West Park Township and River Edge Township!


 * So, to get back to the original discussion of record keeping, through most of this complexity, the county kept most records. In some cases, especially beginning in the 20th Century, cities took over some county operations, such as having their own health department. In the court system, some cases were handled by municipal courts in local communities rather than the common pleas court in the county seat (I believe this mainly applied to small civil claims and low-grade criminal offenses, not to probate, domestic relations, or felony-level criminal offenses). Townships, however, often times ran their own cemeteries, and in some cases still have some control over them, although there are also many privately run now.
 * If we bring up the US Census, however, it can be challenging, as most early records track at the township level, while more recently, the concept of "census-designated places" exists concurrently, taking in parts of the areas of just one or perhaps several townships. The unfortunate thing is, that these CDPs are what most people refer to now, rather than the original township(s) which still exist.
 * In most records, such as death certificates, most will specify whether it occurred within a particular township, village, or city. Many land records describe lots using the original surveyed townships, regardless of whether the land now exists within a village, a city, or a township created later.
 * So...hopefully this doesn't look like too much of a firehose to drink from. I believe the issues regarding the segmenting of Ohio are as follows:


 * Most early records are based from the original townships, even into the 20th century. Land records still use these original townships too. I am not certain each township will deserve and article unto itself.
 * Villages and cities, all of which sprang up from these townships, and of varying shapes and sizes, may or may not deserve their own article. Large cities, such as Cleveland, certainly are worth of their own article.
 * Should there be articles created for now-existing CDP's? An example would be Valley City, which is just one of a few "dots on the map" in Liverpool Township in Medina County. Personally, I would prefer a simple redirect page for these, at least in Ohio, as every single inch of it falls within a at least a township, village, or city.
 * How should we handle other "dots on the map", some of which aren't even known today, or are more prominent than their township name (some are the postal designation, which often coincides with CDP, but not necessarily). The aforementioned Liverpool Township includes Valley City, Hardscrabble, and Beebetown, but I don't think we really need to give those article consideration. I do believe a "Municipalities and Communities of Medina County" page or section for the county should probably enumerate these, especially since it can be very helpful to know where these are when researching in newspapers, which seem to prefer them over township names.


 * I know I have once again brought up many things at once, but I would like to address these issues so that I can keep working on Ohio-related articles. I believe Ohio is probably pretty simple when compared to other states, like Illinois (take a look at Cook County, where Chicago is...the township-city-county connundrum looks to run far deeper there!). If we can figure Ohio out, then I can continue working on ironing things out here and keeping things organized! Thanks!!! - LeeTHawkins 20:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)