Hi List, When filling in census returns with 'Ancestral Sources,' sometimes the parishes have moved boundaries and are now in adjacent counties. Occasionally the county is completely wrong! Please can anyone tell me how I should be recording these? "As is" or with the present day county? Regards Marlene

Original query from Marlene was " When filling in census returns with 'Ancestral Sources,' sometimes the parishes have moved boundaries and are now in adjacent counties. Occasionally the county is completely wrong! Please can anyone tell me how I should be recording these? "As is" or with the present day county?" Some of the new "counties" such as Merseyside and Greater Manchester are in fact administrative counties and not shire counties. My personal preference is for the shire county, and where places have moved from one to another I have used the county of the period. EG Widnes and Warrington are now in Cheshire, however they used to be in Lancashire. If the event I am recording occurred in Warrington Lancashire that is what I put, if the event happened last year I would record Warrington Cheshire. I will not record Liverpool as being in Merseyside as that is an administrative county, whereas it is still in the County Palatine of Lancaster. What do others do? Shelagh

<<snipped>> "As is" or with the present day county? <<snipped>> Lots of answers for you Marlene! Usually people say there are 3 types of county: - the historical counties, usually alleged to exist up to 1974; - administrative counties (where the local government is done) - ceremonial counties (the area covered by a Lord Lieutenant); In overall terms, it's usually said that there was only one sort up to 1974 - however, the Victorians created county boroughs that were independent of the surrounding county council, thus effectively creating administrative counties back then. Does it all matter? If you happen to be a die-hard, pre-1974 enthusiast, yes. But for you, think what you are likely to be using the places for. If you record events in both "Warrington, Lancashire" and "Warrington, Cheshire", will you ever want to pull off a list of things happening in both varieties of Warrington? Because if you do, then either you need to be slightly clever with queries or you need to make two passes to pull off "Warrington, Lancashire" and "Warrington, Cheshire", as FH really thinks these 2 are different places. If that sounds like a bit of a pain, then I suggest you settle on one county structure throughout history - many family historians, for this reason, settle on using the pre-1974 historical counties with the pre-1974 boundaries, even for post-1974 events. It's what I do. You may well come up with exceptions. I really can't summon up the enthusiasm to check which historical counties bits of London lie in, so it just gets called "Islington, London,,England" by me (e.g.) Note the ",," forces the country and city into consistent columns in some parts of FH. Scotland has both the 1974 name change and a 19th century renaming from old names like "Angus" to shire-names like "Forfarshire" - which is simply Angus under another name. While Angus is easier to type, I have references to the "Sheriff Substitute of Forfarshire" so I settled on that 19th century shire-style name, even for earlier events. Try and be consistent - for instance, if I were to put Warrington into Cheshire, then because that's a post-1974 Cheshire, I'd put Liverpool into the post-1974 Merseyside. But you'll probably end up saying "There's nothing like consistency and this is nothing like...." Adrian B

Hi Marlene, This may sound like a lot of effort, and I have not yet achieved everything I want yet, but this is my technique. I will focus on Census returns, but the method should work for any events. In the Place field I record the GRO District, County & Country that was formally associated with the Census at that time. In the Address field I record the House Address, but supplement it with a modern postal address, often including the postcode. This allows the location to be pinpointed using online tools such as Google Maps. FH V5 offers some new features that allow automatic Geocoding to plot Addresses on maps using Place & Address details, but needs modern Addresses. I am also in the process of creating a Source/Repository record for each location, which is cited by every Fact with the associated location Place/Address. This Source/Repository record provides one set of data for everything I discover about that location. This includes its Postcode, Latitude & Longitude, alternative District/County over time, Internet hyperlinks to relevant websites, photos of places like churches, phone & E-mail contact details, etc. Further details are at http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=how_to:create_locations_database_details on the FHUG website. Regards, Mike Tate -----Original Message----- From: family-historian-users-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:family-historian-users-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Marlene James Sent: 21 February 2012 17:28 To: family-historian-users@rootsweb.com Subject: [FHU] Which County? Hi List, When filling in census returns with 'Ancestral Sources,' sometimes the parishes have moved boundaries and are now in adjacent counties. Occasionally the county is completely wrong! Please can anyone tell me how I should be recording these? "As is" or with the present day county? Regards Marlene

This is very interesting. I have read the link provided, but all I would like to do is produce a report with all the addresses (not places) that i have so far used. is that a simple possibility / already produced custom report? Andrew On 21 Feb 2012, at 21:28, Beryl & Mike Tate wrote: > > > In the Place field I record the GRO District, County & Country that was formally associated with the Census at that time. > In the Address field I record the House Address, but supplement it with a modern postal address, often including the postcode. > > This allows the location to be pinpointed using online tools such as Google Maps. > FH V5 offers some new features that allow automatic Geocoding to plot Addresses on maps using Place & Address details, but needs > modern Addresses. > > I am also in the process of creating a Source/Repository record for each location, which is cited by every Fact with the associated > location Place/Address. > This Source/Repository record provides one set of data for everything I discover about that location. > This includes its Postcode, Latitude & Longitude, alternative District/County over time, Internet hyperlinks to relevant websites, > photos of places like churches, phone & E-mail contact details, etc. > > Further details are at http://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=how_to:create_locations_database_details on the FHUG website. > > Regards, Mike Tate