Bristol lies partly in Gloucestershire and partly in Somerset

[Zaphod99]

Well, these days it's a unitary authority.

Suppose you need to record an event or person in Bristol, without any finer granularity.  How would you record the location of Bristol in bygone days?

https://abcounties.com/news/which-county-is-bristol-in/

Zaph

[FJulianSmith]

As far as I can see, Bristol has technically been a county in its own right since 1373!  It seems to have been within the county of Avon from 1974 to 1996 but is split geographically between the historic areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset.  I think it is probably most sensible to simply call it "Bristol, England"!

[Old Bristolian]

The ancient city of Bristol was always in Gloucestershire. Over the years it absorbed some parishes south of the river Avon which were originally in Somerset. However the city (which became a county in its own right in the 1370s) has never been in Somerset. Sadly many databases still state Bristol, Somerset.

[Zaphod99]

Thanks OB.  I'm puzzled by the above link.  I'm still undecided how to record it.  I've always thought of it as being in Gloucestershire.  I don't know why I looked into it.

Zaph

[Milliepede]

It was always Bristol Avon in my day. 

[Andrew Tarr]

It was always Bristol Avon in my day.

Avon was a municipal county invented about 1970 to avoid the difficulty of the Bristol conurbation being in two counties !
Up here, we in Cheshire recently gained the town of Warrington, which Lancastrians will know was always in Lancashire  and belongs there IMHO 

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I wish "they" would leave local government areas alone, instead of re-organizing every 30 years or so. Am I right in thinking that French L.G. areas haven't changed since Napoleon?

[MollyC]

The previous big shake-up was in 1894 when urban and rural districts were invented.  After that County Boroughs gobbled up some surrounding parishes via local acts of parliament.  Added: I think that was probably halted by the Town & Country Planning Act of 1948, which created Green Belts.

The new London Boroughs were created in 1964, then the new counties and districts were invented 1 April 1974.  Metropolitan counties were scrapped 1 April 1986, except county-wide services were retained for Police and Fire.  Some met. districts decided to run joint county services for smaller functions - eg archaeology, archives, in some counties but not in others.  I have lost track of the unitary authorities created since then in non-met counties.  I will not make any statements about Bristol because I really do not know, except to say that Avon was invented as a "non-metropolitan county" from 1974, comprising two non-met. districts, Bristol and Bath.

It was possible to find lists of changes up to 1974 in the Vision of Britain website until a few weeks ago when it was all rearranged, now I cannot find them.

[AntonyMMM]

Up here, we in Cheshire recently gained the town of Warrington, which Lancastrians will know was always in Lancashire  and belongs there IMHO 

And under current BMD registration rules, places are always supposed to be recorded as they are NOW - so on the death certificate of someone born maybe a hundred years ago in Warrington and may have called themselves a proud Lancastrian, their place of birth would be shown as Warrington,Cheshire.

Will be potentially confusing for future researchers.

At a families very earnest request I did once record a birthplace on a death reg using its old historical details, which successfully slipped through the checking process. They were very grateful.