Skip Magyar
Cadet
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2018
The reason I ask is because I belong to a large genealogy website and in the course of adding a profile for an ancestor I placed him in a few of their predefined categories, to wit:
Categories: Killed in Action, United States Civil War | 77th Regiment, Ohio Infantry, United States Civil War | Battle of Shiloh.
I thought their categorizing it as the "United States" Civil War sounded very odd and I couldn't recall the War being referred to that manner. I'm not a Civil War scholar but I've read over 20 books on the War, researched hundreds of Civil War veterans and I can't recall ever seeing that characterization of the Civil War in print. The States were anything but United at the time.
So for my veteran only, I changed United States to American and added Volunteer as shown below:
Categories: Killed in Action, American Civil War | 77th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, American Civil War | Battle of Shiloh.
This didn't affect anyone else on the website and I felt it was historically more accurate. About a week later someone changed my original post from "American " to "United States". I didn’t recognize the person who changed my post but she appeared to be some kind of site monitor. I changed "United States" back to "American" and a few days later the monitor changed it for a second time.
Next I messaged her the following:
Hi Nancy,
I'm asking you nicely to please stop changing the Bio information for my ancestor John Hepburn
There was never a war called the United States Civil War. It is usually called the American Civil War or the War Between the States or even the War of Northern Agression if you happen to be from the south but it was never the United States Civil War.
Please feel free to contact me anytime at [email protected]
Thank you,
Skip
I thought that would fix the problem but then I received her response:
Regardless of that, at WikiTree in our category system, it's called United States Civil War. I didn't choose it, but it was chosen by Military and War project in coordination with the Categorization project, sometime in the past.
The category [[Category:Killed In Action, American Civil War]] is an invalid category and will be deleted. We already have a category for this, but apparently it's not what you believe to be correct. If you don't like that category name, you can simply leave it off and ensure that the facts of the man's war service and death are laid out in his biography. We have been removing the use of "American" for the US in categories because the USA is not the only place using "America." Sure, many people around the globe refer to US citizens as "American" but some do not. We are leaning toward using nouns in category names (vs. adjectives.) This is not in full use yet, and we have not reviewed all categories for such a change at this point in time.
Thanks,
Natalie
My response:
It's not a matter of what I believe, it's a matter of historical fact. I would ask the Military and War project to revisit their naming conventions and do a little research on the Civil War. I'm not trying to create a new category. I just don't want incorrect information on my ancestor's profile page.
Please don't change John Hepburn's Biography again.
Thanks,
Skip
Am I being unreasonable wanting to honor my ancestor with accurate information...
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hepburn-1098
...or are they exhibiting yet another example of "political correctness" run amok?
I'd appreciate any comments, pro or con.
Skip
Categories: Killed in Action, United States Civil War | 77th Regiment, Ohio Infantry, United States Civil War | Battle of Shiloh.
I thought their categorizing it as the "United States" Civil War sounded very odd and I couldn't recall the War being referred to that manner. I'm not a Civil War scholar but I've read over 20 books on the War, researched hundreds of Civil War veterans and I can't recall ever seeing that characterization of the Civil War in print. The States were anything but United at the time.
So for my veteran only, I changed United States to American and added Volunteer as shown below:
Categories: Killed in Action, American Civil War | 77th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, American Civil War | Battle of Shiloh.
This didn't affect anyone else on the website and I felt it was historically more accurate. About a week later someone changed my original post from "American " to "United States". I didn’t recognize the person who changed my post but she appeared to be some kind of site monitor. I changed "United States" back to "American" and a few days later the monitor changed it for a second time.
Next I messaged her the following:
Hi Nancy,
I'm asking you nicely to please stop changing the Bio information for my ancestor John Hepburn
There was never a war called the United States Civil War. It is usually called the American Civil War or the War Between the States or even the War of Northern Agression if you happen to be from the south but it was never the United States Civil War.
Please feel free to contact me anytime at [email protected]
Thank you,
Skip
I thought that would fix the problem but then I received her response:
Regardless of that, at WikiTree in our category system, it's called United States Civil War. I didn't choose it, but it was chosen by Military and War project in coordination with the Categorization project, sometime in the past.
The category [[Category:Killed In Action, American Civil War]] is an invalid category and will be deleted. We already have a category for this, but apparently it's not what you believe to be correct. If you don't like that category name, you can simply leave it off and ensure that the facts of the man's war service and death are laid out in his biography. We have been removing the use of "American" for the US in categories because the USA is not the only place using "America." Sure, many people around the globe refer to US citizens as "American" but some do not. We are leaning toward using nouns in category names (vs. adjectives.) This is not in full use yet, and we have not reviewed all categories for such a change at this point in time.
Thanks,
Natalie
My response:
It's not a matter of what I believe, it's a matter of historical fact. I would ask the Military and War project to revisit their naming conventions and do a little research on the Civil War. I'm not trying to create a new category. I just don't want incorrect information on my ancestor's profile page.
Please don't change John Hepburn's Biography again.
Thanks,
Skip
Am I being unreasonable wanting to honor my ancestor with accurate information...
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hepburn-1098
...or are they exhibiting yet another example of "political correctness" run amok?
I'd appreciate any comments, pro or con.
Skip