MyWiki:WikiProject Indiana/GNIS cleanup
Per Project:Reliability of GNIS data there are many (sub)stub articles on Indiana places that have been created sourced to GNIS entries. A lot of them falsely designate things as "unincorporated communities", which is several GNIS importers' catch-all equivalent to the GNIS catch-all feature classification code "populated place". GNIS has many errors, and all of these (sub)stubs need cleanup.
Resources
[edit source]County histories
[edit source]As of March 2025 only a minority of the counties in Indiana have had their county histories located and properly cited, with links to (in the case of the 19th century histories) where they can be read via the HathiTrust or the Internet Archive.
You can help complete this task.
- Adams
- Allen
- Bartholomew
- Benton
- Blackford
- Boone
- Brown
- Carroll
- Cass
- Clark
- Clay
- Clinton
- Crawford
- Daviess
- Dearborn
- Decatur
- DeKalb
- Delaware
- Dubois
- Elkhart
- Fayette
- Floyd
- Fountain
- Franklin
- Fulton
- Gibson
- Grant
- Greene
- Hamilton
- Hancock
- Harrison
- Hendricks
- Henry
- Howard
- Huntington
- Jackson
- Jasper
Jay- Jefferson
- Jennings
- Johnson
Knox- Kosciusko
- LaGrange
- Lake
- LaPorte
- Lawrence
- Madison
- Marion
- Marshall
- Martin
- Miami
- Monroe
- Montgomery
- Morgan
- Newton
- Noble
- Ohio
- Orange
- Owen
- Parke
- Perry
- Pike
- Porter
- Posey
- Pulaski
- Putnam
- Randolph
- Ripley
- Rush
- Saint Joseph
- Scott
- Shelby
- Spencer
- Starke
- Steuben
- Sullivan
- Switzerland
- Tippecanoe
Tipton- Union
Vanderburgh- Vermillion
- Vigo
- Wabash
- Warren
- Warrick
- Washington
- Wayne
- Wells
- White
- Whitley
Old atlases
[edit source]Some GNIS records cite this atlas as their source, which can be checked directly to see what it is an article is likely actually about:
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Indiana at the Internet Archive)
Several of the "populated places" that the GNIS compilers took from this atlas (e.g. 452234) are little red-coloured pictures of envelopes, clearly denoting post-offices. The legend at the start of the atlas also explains the symbols for schools, blacksmith's, and so forth.
Toponymy
[edit source]Ronald L. Baker is often cited as a supporting source in many 2-sentence or 3-sentence GNIS "unincorporated community" articles. Not only does Baker usually say explicitly that things are villages, hamlets, or post-offices; but Baker is often erroneously cited saying that something was a post-office, or that there was a post-office at a railway station, to support a statement that a non-existent settlement had a post-office.
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (From Needmore to Prosperity: Hoosier Place Names in Folklore and History at the Internet Archive)
Some of the Federal Writer's Project sources that Baker cites (which xe explains are the Manuscript Files of the Federal Writers' Project, Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana State University, Terre Haute) can be checked directly, and it is important to cross-check Baker against at least 1 other source.
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
The history of the FWP files is explained at
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
Gazetteers
[edit source]In addition to the national-scope gazetteers on the general resources page, there are some state-wide gazetteers:
Polk's
[edit source]Polk published gazetteers regularly. This is not an exhaustive list.
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (Indiana gazetteer and business directory at the Internet Archive Indiana gazetteer and business directory at the Internet Archive)
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (volume 1 at the Internet Archive volume 1 at the Internet Archive)
Others
[edit source]- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (Indiana State Gazetteer and Shippers' Guide for 1866‐67 at the HathiTrust Digital Library)
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (Redfield & Logan's Columbus & Indianapolis Central Railway Business Guide, and Western Gazetteer of Indiana and Ohio for 1866–67 at the HathiTrust Digital Library)
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (The Indiana gazetteer, or Topographical dictionary of the state of Indiana at the Internet Archive The Indiana gazetteer, or Topographical dictionary of the state of Indiana at the Internet Archive The Indiana gazetteer, or Topographical dictionary of the State of Indiana at the HathiTrust Digital Library)
- The Indiana gazetteer, or Topographical dictionary of the state of Indiana at the Internet Archive is still the same 3rd edition, reprinted in 1850.
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). (The Indiana Gazetteer, Or, Topographical Dictionary at the Internet Archive The Indiana Gazetteer, Or, Topographical Dictionary at the HathiTrust Digital Library)
- Beware that because of some incompetent scanning by Google in 2008 that did not fully turn pages, there are false Google Books matches to several erroneous names that are parts of entries on following or preceding pages.
- Beware that seemingly later 20th century republications of this by the Indiana Historical Society are actually republications of the earlier 1826 first edition. They were more competently scanned, though. (The Indiana Gazetteer, Or, Topographical Dictionary at the Internet Archive)