How to refer to the same place over time.

[manukarik]

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?

[chris_49]

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.

[Andrew Tarr]

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.

[chris_49]

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.

[JustinL]

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.



 

[chris_49]

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).

[Andrew Tarr]

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 

[chris_49]

Might see you when I'm next down there...
(Can't say much more without giving addresses away)

[Maiden Stone]

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.