Place hierarchy for Dutch -> British colonies

[dan_inbox]

Some Dutch ancestors immigrated into Fort Oranje in the the then-Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland (New Netherlands). During their lifetime Nieuw Nederland was taken over by the British, and became part of the British Colonies under the new name of Province of New York. Fort Oranje was renamed Fort Albany.

(For now I’ll ignore the 73-74 intermede of Dutch reconquest on 1673-08-03, renaming to Ft Nassau followed by English re-reconquest and back-renaming on 1674-02-19, since I have no event in that period)

Then there was the Revolution. To simplify a long story, it made the following changes:

1. Province of NY → British colonies became NY state → USA
2. Fort Albany became the city currently called Albany (simplified story)

For manageability I’ll record it all as happening on the single date of 1776-07-04.
Also for manageability, for now I’ll consider that Nieuw Nederland is the same area as NY state, even though it really went further South into NJ PA DE.

So we have a places hierarchy looking like
1624 Ft Oranje, Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland
1664 Ft Albany, Province of New York, British colonies
1776 Albany, New York state, USA

Similarly, for the Dutch folks who immigrated into present-day NYC, we have a hierarchy looking like
1624 New Amsterdam, Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland
1664 New York, Province of New York, British colonies
1776 New York City, New York state, USA

I am not too comfortable with the mechanism for representing this in Gramps. I know how to record a place changing its name over time, but not how to record a place changing its “encloser”.
Here Nieuw Nederland is not enclosed into anything (was part of Dutch Republic politically, but not geographically), but when it becomes Province of New York it gets enclosed by British Colonies (later USA), and I don’t see how to input this.

Any pointers on how to record this hierarchy, please?

Thank you.
dan - using AIO32-5.1.5-1 on win10.

[DaveSch]

Here are images of my records for New York City and again for New York state.

Each set contains the information on changing the place record’s name, and how to set up a hierarchy in the enclosed by tab.

Notice that in changing a place’s name, there is an open edit window to set the information for the main place Name field.

In the Enclosed by tabs, a place record can have more than one record each with date information that indicates when that was true.

Each place record can have their own set of name changes and enclosed by hierarchy. The date of the event will determine which hierarchy path Gramps will travel to put together the name of the place that is displayed.

You will note that I have set the NY state to end on 4 July 1776 for the UK/GB record, but it does not go to the USA record until 1 March 1781. This is the date the Articles of Confederation went into effect. During those in-between times the state/colony was the top-level name.

I hope these examples help.

[dan_inbox]

Thank you Dave, yes your examples help a lot.
I created Nieuw Nederland this way and it works as expected.

I now meet one drawback with this set-up: all the cities in present NY state with events before the 1664 take over of Nieuw Nederland must be set up with the double enclosure first by NN then by USA. Same for all cities in NJ. And I have several dozens such cities.

It would be a lot less work (and opportunities for error) if I could just set it at state level rather than city level. That is, set the states of NY and NJ to change their name and encloser:

NY state:
Name : before 1664 Nieuw Nederland, then Province of NY, then NY state
Enclosed by: before 1664 none ; then British 13 colonies ; then USA

NJ state:
Name : before 1664 Nieuw Nederland, then Province of NJ, then NJ state
Enclosed by: before 1664 none ; then British 13 colonies ; then USA

Would this an acceptable setup, or will it create conflicts in Gramps that different places have the same name of Nieuw Nederland before 1664?
Any other caveats?

Thank you.
dan - using AIO32-5.1.5-1 on win10.

[DaveSch]

@dan_inbox

NY state:
Name : before 1664 Nieuw Nederland, then Province of NY, then NY state
Enclosed by: before 1664 none ; then British 13 colonies ; then USA

NJ state:
Name : before 1664 Nieuw Nederland, then Province of NJ, then NJ state
Enclosed by: before 1664 none ; then British 13 colonies ; then USA

Yes, you can do that.

The problem would be that you would have two Nieuw Nederland records. And that may be acceptable to you. In Gramps, there is no one way of doing things.

One feature you may not fully appreciate is the Clipboard. on the toolbar.

You can set up a city to point to Nieuw Nederland where NN is its own record. Once it has been added to the city’s Enclosed by tab, drag-n-drop the NN record from Enclosed by to the floating clipboard. Now when you edit the next city record, you can d-n-d NN from the clipboard into this new Enclosed by tab. Just make sure that the records in the Enclosed by are in the correct order.

Using the clipboard, editing each city record may not be as onerous as you think.

[dan_inbox]

Thanks for the confirmation, and also for the hint about the clipboard handling “enclosed by”. I didn’t know that.

I have still chosen to get the states change name and enclosure, because that way it does work for all current and future places in those states. Having to do the time-variable enclosure for each new city is too much an opportunity for oversight and error for me.

It’s implemented in my tree and solves neatly this question for my needs.
Thanks again.