Some of you may not be able to find a village of your ancestor on a map. The reason is probably because they no longer exist. No it is not due to a name change but simply because they have disappeared into the North Sea due to the Holderness coats line erosion. The following report is from today's Hull Daily Mail web site. You may find some of the villages listed in Genuki. Victor The East Yorkshire coastline has been receding for thousands of years. About 22 villages have been swept into the sea and more are likely to follow. Victims include Auburn, Hartburn, Northorpe, Monkswell, Monkwike, Waxholme, Dimlington, Turmarr, Orwithfleete, Tharlesthorpe, Owthorne, Hoton, Sunthorpe, old Kilnsea and Ravenser. They all lie under the sea off the Holderness coast and in their time they had churches, fields, farmhouses and cottages, mills and ponds. The villages were established on boulder clay, rather than the solid chalk of more northerly villages, such as Flamborough, and their downfall was inevitable as the cliffs crumbled into the sea. Some of their names are perpetuated in street names in villages and towns, such as Easington and Withernsea. It has been estimated that when the Romans were in Britain the coastline of Holderness was about three and a half miles further east than it is now. And when the Domesday Book of 1086 gave the first full list of Britain's settlements the coastline was probably about two miles further east. Some of the lost villages still had open fields stretching out to sea when Domesday was written. Since then, coastal erosion has been relentless, claiming thousands of acres of prime East Yorkshire farmland and properties. Erosion happens in a process by which coastline rocks are broken up by the action of the sea and taken out to sea or along the coast by waves and wind.