Wonderful descriptions - for the United States. But may I venture that these do not necessarily apply to the rest of the Genealogical world? Thare are so many variations that no real rules can be given.
-- Rodney HALL Heywood, Lancashire Ut sementem feceris, ita metes As you sow, so shall you reap ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://rmhh.co.uk/ http://rmhh.org.uk/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Benjamin Woznick Sent: 05 July 2002 17:59 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] [LegacyUser] location, location, location Joan Best is getting there in her description, but the only real thing one can really say about these multifarious terms is that they are state dependent, and other jurisdiction names are possible. It should be clear from the analysis below that there is no simple way to either define the terms "city," "town," "village," and "township." The idea that there are exactly 3 (or 4) levels that are interesting, as our elders and betters in the genealogical community seem to have decided, is a snare and a delusion. Most of this discussion focuses on Massachusetts. I am much less familiar with other states, but I can make a few remarks about New Jersey, New York City, Texas, Michigan and Ohio of a few years ago. In Massachusetts, the entire state is divided into counties. There are 14 such entities today, but the number and shape of these bodies has changed over the years. Counties are usually contigous areas, although even today part of Norfolk County (not to be confused with the Norfolk County of the colonial period, which was in an entirely different part of the state) is completely surrounded by Suffolk County. Massachusetts is abolishing counties as governmental units, but they remain as administrative units of the state (Middlesex County, wherein one finds my home city Cambridge, was the first such entity to make the transition about a decade ago). The state is also divided into 351 jurisdictions called "cities" and "towns." There is no "unorganized" territory in Massachusetts, everything is in some city or town, and every city or town is in a county. It was not always thus, however. The term "city" has a clear, political science definition, and is not simply a matter of the size of a community. It has a charter, as a city, from the state, saying that it is a city. There are 37 cities by this definition in Massachusetts. A city has (I believe) a mayor (chief executive officer) and a city council (legislature). But the mayor may be elected by the city council and may really only be the chairman of that body, while executive powers are vested in a city manager. Cambridge in has this "weak mayor" structure. Some cities, like Newton, have subdivisions that are called villages, but I do not believe that they have any political role. On the other hand, they are very interesting sociologically, and should be included, when known, in the definition of the location for genealogical description. Waban (part of Newton) is very different from the adjacent village, Auburndale. Cities are also divided into Wards, which may have political meaning (where the city council is elected by district, in which case the officer may be called an "alderman" rather than "councillor"), or they may just be a fiction for setting up polling places. Wards are interesting genealogically because the enumeration districts in the censuses of 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 usually do not cross ward boundaries. Boston was constructed over a period of time through annexation of other independent units. These are often referred to as "neighborhoods," but that term is also used for Beacon Hill and Back Bay, which have been part of Boston since colonial times. Much of this annexation took place in the 1890s, and some of the formerly independent units have familiar names to people who do colonial New England genealogy: Dorchester and Roxbury are probably the most familiar in this regard. In other parts of the country, annexation of unorganized territory and of some organized districts is still possible today. A town is also chartered by the state. It has a legislative body called "town meeting." The town meeting can be a traditional body, in which any voter may appear, speak and vote, or it may be a "representative town meeting" in which only people elected by district have voice and vote in the meeting. The town meeting choses a board of directors, called "selectmen." Again, a large town may be called a "township" and have commerically and sociologically interesting subdivisions (like "Barnstable Township on Cape Cod, which contains villages like Barnstable, Hyannis, Hyannisport, and Osterville), but I believe there is one town meeting at the level of Barnstable Township. In the colonial and early Federal periods, all the jurisdictions at this level (one down from the county, two from the state) were towns with the traditional structure In Massachusetts there are a few very large towns with representative town meetings, Brookline I believe exceeds the population of about half the cities in the Commonwealth (yeah, we don't call it a "state," just to further confuse matters). In New Jersey, the state is divided into counties. I believe everything contained in a county. There independent units called cities, boroughs, and villages, which are distinguished by the form of government. I don't actually know what the differences are, I lived as a child in a borough which had a mayor and council structure like a Massachusetts city. There are also townships. Again, when I was a child, the political division across the street was a township, and I think it was effectively an unorganized part of our county, but I am not sure. It is now, I believe a borough. When they retired, my parents lived in Toms River, which was part of Dover Township. I never actually figured out what functions were assigned to TR, nor did I learn what it was called. New York City is (I believe) the only city that contains counties, rather than being contained by them. Before about 1890, New York City consisted of Manhattan Island, and was coterminous with New York County. Over about a decade the modern city was assembled. It consists of 5 "boroughs" that have boundaries coterminous with 5 counties. Unfortuanately they don't have the same names. The boroughs are called called (according to Ancestry's Red Book, and my own recollection): Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island. The corresponding county names are New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, and Richmond. As recently as 1970 (and perhaps still today), Texas had unorganized areas that could be unilaterally annexed to cities like Houston. In addition to the usual divisions, there was an overlaid structure of school districts, which took on the character of real places, even if they were otherwise unorganized (part of the county) or embedded even in a city. The 1970 map of Harris County, of which Houston is a part, resembled the Holy Roman Empire in Germany circa 1800, but in 3 dimensions rather than just 2. As recently as 1950, there were unorganized parts of the state of Michigan and Ohio. Everything, of course, was in a township in the sense of the land divisions imposed by the Northwest Territory Ordinance, which we know from land records. Over time, these were reshaped. In Massachusetts, the sequences of order are: State, county, city, (village or neighborhood), (ward) or State, county, town/township, (village) In New Jersey, the structure approximates: State, county, city or State, county, borough or State, county, village, or State, county, township, (subunit, name not know by me) And in New York, there are at least State, county, sub-unit or State, New York City, county Good luck, Ben To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp
