RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: manukarik on Saturday 12 December 20 18:56 GMT (UK)
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Working on my family tree, I decided to refer to places as they were known at the relevant period in time (possibly with the modern-day details in the notes or a GPS reference). However, this is proving difficult.
Some are straightforward, for example, Barrow-in Furness was in Lancashire but is now in Cumbria. Or Deeping Fen in Lincolnshire changing its name to Deeping St Nicholas.
Places in outer London could be situated in a county (Kent, Middlesex, etc, later the County of London) and then there are Boroughs, etc).
Some counties are mostly ceremonial or the ceremonial county covers a different area to the present-day county.
I tried to make sense of this by referring to the Gazetteer of British Place Names http://gazetteer.org.uk/ but have found this only to be of limited help.
What do you do or suggest? Is there a list somewhere? Or do I just go on the information given on BMD and Census entries?
For example, I have Bermondsey, London, England; Bermondsey, Surrey, England; Bermondsey, London, Surrey for the same place and then with boundary changes or local government changes may have it entered as something different again. It's very confusing!
Is there a definitive list somewhere that I can refer to?
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I don't know about a definitive list, but I always refer to the county that pertained at the time of the record, and, since I have very few events in my records after 1974, that refers to the pre-1974 counties which lasted for centuries with only minor boundary changes. so for me Barrow was always in Lancs.
It always annoys me when software like GR "suggests" modern counties and districts for events centuries ago, like "Merseyside" or "Avon" but I've learnt to ignore it.
It does mean that for places that moved county a choice must be made. So I put Alderminster in Warwickshire, though it used to be part of the great Rorschach blob that was Worcestershire - I chose the correct county for the event (a marriage) even though the groom (age unknown) might have been born when it was still in Worcs.
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I don't know about a definitive list, but I always refer to the county that pertained at the time of the record, and, since I have very few events in my records after 1974, that refers to the pre-1974 counties which lasted for centuries with only minor boundary changes. so for me Barrow was always in Lancs.
It always annoys me when software like GR "suggests" modern counties and districts for events centuries ago, like "Merseyside" or "Avon" but I've learnt to ignore it.
Wholeheartedly agree.
The town of my birth was divided between the modern local government units of Greater Manchester (named South-East Lancashire and North Cheshire, abbreviated to SELNEC) and Lancashire in 1974. The whole town is geographically in Lancashire.
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Thank you chris_49 and Maiden Stone.
Will have to come to a decision and stick with it!
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I would opt for the place names as they appeared then.
Maybe add a note explaining any changes, or add ‘then’ and ‘now’ eg. Bermondsey Surrey, now Bermondsey London (or Greater London or whatever it is).
If you left it as Surrey, as long as it can be found by anyone looking at your tree, that is the most important thing. I am not sure that anyone would look at Bermondsey Surrey and think it was a different Bermondsey from the London one. Having said that, how much you explain the place names may depend on a number of factors, such as knowledge of yourself and those who you expect might view your tree. For example if your family live in the USA or The Far East you might need to clarify that Bermondsey is in London and London is in England. It is quite possible that they won’t know where Surrey is anyway. :)
It just comes down to personal preference.
Genuki might be useful:
https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LND/parishes
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Thanks Ruskie!
My preference is to refer to places as they were referred to at the time, but also to be consistent. I'll have a look at genuki as suggested.
Depending on the source used, a place might be referred to slightly differently. I'll have another think before I start changing the place names in my family tree software.
Thanks again....
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My preference is to refer to places as they were referred to at the time, but also to be consistent. I'll have a look at genuki as suggested.
It's no help saying this, but you are trying to include the fourth dimension in what is basically a 3-dimensional system. I don't think there is a way to do that without introducing the chance of mis-searching. If you think of your data in today's geography, adopt today's nomenclature - and where there have been changes you might add (then in Surrey) for example.
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It has always irked me that my brother was born at Broadway Close, Sanderstead, Surrey and he died at that address, but when I registered it, it had to be recorded as Broadway Close, South Croydon, Surrey. South Croydon and Sanderstead are separate and have their own railway stations.
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My preference is to refer to places as they were referred to at the time, but also to be consistent. I'll have a look at genuki as suggested.
It's no help saying this, but you are trying to include the fourth dimension in what is basically a 3-dimensional system. I don't think there is a way to do that without introducing the chance of mis-searching. If you think of your data in today's geography, adopt today's nomenclature - and where there have been changes you might add (then in Surrey) for example.
Andrew Tarr - I accept what you are saying. However, if I were to search for information at a certain date I would need to search for where the place was considered to be at a certain time. For example, I was born in Barrow-in-Furness. If I were to search for my birth certificate, I would need to look for records in Lancashire and if I were still living there I would need to look for more recent documents in Cumbria, wouldn't I? I've maybe set myself an impossible task. To my mind and as you suggest, there is a need for some form of cross-reference. I either go the route you are suggesting and note where the place was considered to be at the time. This is a valid approach. Or I take the opposite approach and use the way the place was referred to at the time and note how it is referred to now. I am using Rootsmagic, so have the option of using a GPS reference with a link to a map.
I am perhaps being a little naïve in thinking what I am trying to do would be easy, but it is, I guess, possible, to some extent.
I value all thoughts on this and am simply trying to clarify the matter in my head before I add too many more places with different counties, boroughs, districts etc.
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It has always irked me that my brother was born at Broadway Close, Sanderstead, Surrey and he died at that address, but when I registered it, it had to be recorded as Broadway Close, South Croydon, Surrey. South Croydon and Sanderstead are separate and have their own railway stations.
Jeuel - I agree with you there! However, I guess part of constructing a family tree and the family's history is also a form of historical documentation and that in looking at the history of the family, the geographical history should also be documented?
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There's a wider issue here, if you can bear with me.
Barrow-in-Furness was presumably named to distinguish it from other places in Lancashire such as Barrowford, but now that it's in Cumbria that may not be necessary. One common way to distinguish between places of the same name in a county was to include a compass point. This is a different usage from when the places were closer together, such as the Tawtons in Devon or the Retfords in Notts (now merged into one town). But the Derehams in Norfolk are some way apart, and I was confused by East and West Farndon in Northants (the former right on the north-western county boundary near Harborough, so puzzling, but technically not as far west as the other one in the south).
This is a particular problem in Wales because so many old counties were merged (to form Powys and Gwynedd) or had their boundaries altered (particularly Denbighshire). Why this is a problem is that many very common names (such as Llanfair, Llanfihangel, Llanddewi, Llansantffraed, Llanbedr) occur more than once in a county so have to acquire a suffix. So it comes as a surprise to find an unadorned Llanfair and Llanbedr in Merioneth - but this is because they were the only such places in their county - however they are not such in their wider county of Gwynedd. This is another reason why I prefer to use the "old" county names that were used for centuries before 1974.
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There's a wider issue here, if you can bear with me. Barrow-in-Furness was presumably named to distinguish it from other places in Lancashire such as Barrowford, but now that it's in Cumbria that may not be necessary.
In the examples quoted so far the name of each place has not changed, only the name of the administrative district it is in. That is a second-order parameter, and the changes will have come about for various reasons, many due to population growth.
The arrival of railways triggered changes, some of which would pose more awkward problems than those you face: Camberley in Surrey was originally Cambridge Town, but a new name was coined to help railway dispatchers in the 19th century. Another example is the village of Llansantffraid-glyn-Dyfrdwy between Llangollen and Corwen, which has become Carrog, the name of a nearby farm which the railway company adopted to avoid yet another Llan- name.
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Yes, but also because there was a plain Glyndyfrdwy nearby, which also got a station (both still have, on the Llangollen preserved railway). Looking at old maps, only about half the current village of Carrog was in the tiny Llansantffraid parish, the rest being in Corwen which is the only parish still extant.
I have close relatives in both Carrog and nearby Llansantffraid Glynceiriog, universally known as Glynceiriog or even Glyn, so the distinction is necessary and I suspect predates the railways.
The preponderance of Llan- names doesn't seem to have bothered those who named stations on the Shrewsbury-Llanelli line, though they graced three of them with the Wells tag, doubtless to boost trade.
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An interesting topic.
Can you imagine how complicated this becomes when one has European ancestry? Many places in central Europe are now in a different country compared to 100 years ago. A friend of mine has ancestry from a small town in what is now Slovakia. However, until 1918 the town was in Hungary. Records appear in Latin, German, Hungarian and Slovakian; and the town has a different name in each language.
I agree with the point that Ruskie made about making it easy for other people to locate the places now, but I think you can solve that with the GPS links. For my own family tree, or rather the write-up, I have created a table which gives the full names of the places through the centuries, but I try to be consistent and use the current location in the main. In addition to that I use the "My Places" function of google maps to plot the various places where ancestors lived.
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Yes, but also because there was a plain Glyndyfrdwy nearby, which also got a station (both still have, on the Llangollen preserved railway). Looking at old maps, only about half the current village of Carrog was in the tiny Llansantffraid parish, the rest being in Corwen which is the only parish still extant.
I have close relatives in both Carrog and nearby Llansantffraid Glynceiriog, universally known as Glynceiriog or even Glyn, so the distinction is necessary and I suspect predates the railways.
The preponderance of Llan- names doesn't seem to have bothered those who named stations on the Shrewsbury-Llanelli line, though they graced three of them with the Wells tag, doubtless to boost trade.
I now need to correct my own post - Glyndyfrdwy probably acquired its suffix to distinguish itself from Llansantffraid Glan Conwy (now always referred to as Glan Conwy) at the other end of Denbighshire, not for the Glyndyfrdwy one (Carrog) which is in Merioneth and persumably named to distinguish it from another Llansantffraid in that county (sorry don't know it.)
(I like to keep one step ahead of pedants)
There are many places of this name (named for a church dedicated to St Bridget of Kildare) but the only one I know which doesn't drop its first half is Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain of TNS football fame, presumably named to distinguish from another in Montgomeryshire (sorry don't know it).
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I now need to correct my own post - Glyndyfrdwy probably acquired its suffix to distinguish itself from Llansantffraid Glan Conwy (now always referred to as Glan Conwy) at the other end of Denbighshire, not for the Glyndyfrdwy one (Carrog) which is in Merioneth and persumably named to distinguish it from another Llansantffraid in that county (sorry don't know it.)
But you will also know that Glyndyfrdwy simply means 'Dee valley' so in English terms the churches are the Bridget's in the Dee or Conwy valleys. Those of us who work on that steam railway also refer to simply Glyn - it's easier ;)
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Might see you when I'm next down there...
(Can't say much more without giving addresses away)
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Can you imagine how complicated this becomes when one has European ancestry? Many places in central Europe are now in a different country compared to 100 years ago.
Not only Continental Europe. Berwick-on-Tweed has changed nationalities a few times.
Then there's Ireland, pre and post Partition. Some enquiries begin "My ancestor was born in Northern Ireland in 1800". One has to explain that Northern Ireland was a 20th. century creation.
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An interesting topic.
Can you imagine how complicated this becomes when one has European ancestry? Many places in central Europe are now in a different country compared to 100 years ago. A friend of mine has ancestry from a small town in what is now Slovakia. However, until 1918 the town was in Hungary. Records appear in Latin, German, Hungarian and Slovakian; and the town has a different name in each language.
I agree with the point that Ruskie made about making it easy for other people to locate the places now, but I think you can solve that with the GPS links. For my own family tree, or rather the write-up, I have created a table which gives the full names of the places through the centuries, but I try to be consistent and use the current location in the main. In addition to that I use the "My Places" function of google maps to plot the various places where ancestors lived.
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An interesting topic.
Can you imagine how complicated this becomes when one has European ancestry? Many places in central Europe are now in a different country compared to 100 years ago. A friend of mine has ancestry from a small town in what is now Slovakia. However, until 1918 the town was in Hungary. Records appear in Latin, German, Hungarian and Slovakian; and the town has a different name in each language.
I agree with the point that Ruskie made about making it easy for other people to locate the places now, but I think you can solve that with the GPS links. For my own family tree, or rather the write-up, I have created a table which gives the full names of the places through the centuries, but I try to be consistent and use the current location in the main. In addition to that I use the "My Places" function of google maps to plot the various places where ancestors lived.
Oops pressed the button too quickly!
You make an interesting point. Places in Poland could be in Russia or Prussia or the Austrian Empire at different times. There were the Spanish Netherlands and Alsace-Lorraine have moved between France and Germany. How do you refer to placers in Germany and Italy prior to unifcatio?
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I agree with the point that Ruskie made about making it easy for other people to locate the places now, but I think you can solve that with the GPS links. For my own family tree, or rather the write-up, I have created a table which gives the full names of the places through the centuries, but I try to be consistent and use the current location in the main. In addition to that I use the "My Places" function of google maps to plot the various places where ancestors lived.
I'd like to create a table, as you suggest, but am struggling to come up with a definitive reference to a place at a set time.
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Having ancestors from Germany and London, I can appreciate your headache.
Perhaps you could post a couple of examples where you are struggling.
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Having ancestors from Germany and London, I can appreciate your headache.
Perhaps you could post a couple of examples where you are struggling.
I have Bermondsey, Southwark, Surrey; Bermondsey, Surrey and Bermondsey, London and places in Shoreditch suddenly becoming Hackney.
I guess the issue is that local government keeps changing - do you try to mirror that with the Sanitary, Rural or Urban District, Borough or District or stick to the often only Ceremonial County? I certainly know that Bermondsey is in London, but to me it makes senses to use the historical reference and then to note what is known as now (which could of course change again under some future reorganisation).
Some of my ancestors are from Lincolnshire and certainly the boundaries have changed, except for the Ceremonial County which crosses over into neighbouring areas. I've seen reference to North and North East Lincolnshire and also the smaller areas of Lincoln, North Kesteven, South Kesteven, South Holland, Boston, East Lindsey, and West Lindsey. Is it best to stay with Lincolnshire or to refer to the local government area for the time period looked at?
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I'd certainly use the three parts of Lincs, eg Stamford, Kesteven. Lincs so no doubt can occur. (I always give the Riding in Yorks addresses). No such place as North Lincs or the dreaded Humberside back then. London is a minefield, but I'd choose the name by which it was known at the time, only elaborating if he place name has fallen out of use. I realise London expanded gradually into the surrounding counties both physically and administratively, so that places that were once Middlesex or Surrey became London - I suppose technically you should choose whichever was correct at the event, if it matters much to you.
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Border Civil Registration Districts:
If another family researcher has the money to buy the correct BMD certificates so as to double check my research, the post-1837 Civil Registration District name [in UPPER CASE] will be useful to them, especially when my town and surrounding villages changed DISTRICT and therefore County at least three times. All these changes are well tracked at: https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/farnham.html
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I hadn't realised that the situation had become so very complicated in the UK since the Local Government Act of 1888.
Have you come across the Association of British Counties? You may find this of great interest http://gazetteer.org.uk/notes (http://gazetteer.org.uk/notes).
Also this http://historiccountiestrust.co.uk/Historic_Counties_Standard.pdf (http://historiccountiestrust.co.uk/Historic_Counties_Standard.pdf) from The Historic Counties Trust.
I'm still reading through the fascinating material on the two websites.
Just had to add a link to a very useful interactive map https://www.rootschat.com/links/01q4j/ (https://www.rootschat.com/links/01q4j/)
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Thanks, Justin.
There were major reorganisations in England and Wales,1974 and Scotland, 1975. Further changes at end of 20th century.