> What do others do? When I first started family history, and for a long time after, I was careful to record places as they were at the time of the event, so Liverpool in 1980 was in Merseyside, Warrington in Cheshire post-1974 but Lancashire before then. Eventually I realised that this was causing duplication and making it impossible to be consistent about place names. The thing that finally forced me to change was using the excellent TCGR which produces a wonderful index of places in reverse order (the same thing persuaded me to put a comma between the house number and street, but that's a separate discussion). I considered that what's important is consistency. Places don't move, only how government administers them. I also condidered that for the greatest period of time I'm likely to encounter in family history the historic counties were the significant level below country. Yes, there were some anomalies but by and large those counties have been the way they are for hundreds of years until the late 19thC. The significant change then was the formation of the administrative counties such as London and Liverpool. Then of course, there were the 1974 changes, about which the less said the better. The other important thing is to be able to identify the place, then, now and in the future as far as I can reasonably foresee. I want to be able to look at my place data and be able to "go" there both online and in person. After some thought I decided that the only method to use was the historic counties. This approach also fits in better with research tools such as GENUKI and LDS which also use the historic counties. Thus Warrington is always in Lancashire, as is Liverpool; Chelsea is in Middlesex, as are Westminster and Islington; Woolwich is in Kent; Plaistow is in Essex; Abingdon is in Berkshire; and Bournemouth is in Hampshire. I don't use postcodes as these are a modern invention and prevent the reverse sorting from working. I do use GRO registration districts if that's all the information I have (where they span counties, such as Sudbury, I arbitrarily use the county of the town which the district is named after). I find the gazetteers at GENUKI (http://www.genuki.org.uk/cgi-bin/gaz) and ABC (http://www.gazetteer.co.uk/) invaluable. This works for me, but everyone will do things in the way which suits them best. Alan

Alan, what is TCMG? To get an index of places in reverse order, which is often the easiest way to study what happened at a particular place as the normal order can make it difficult to find places where there are spelling variants which may keep them far apart, I have been exporting my data into Personal Ancestry File where there is an excellent report which outputs all place in reverse order and gives all the events which occurred at each place. Is there a way to do this in FH? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan E. White" <family.historian@aewhite.me.uk> To: <family-historian-users@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 12:16 PM Subject: Re: [FHU] Which County? The thing that > finally forced me to change was using the excellent TCGR which produces a > wonderful index of places in reverse order (the same thing persuaded me to > put a comma between the house number and street, but that's a separate > discussion).

What do you do for GRO registration districts that are not named after towns (e.g. Blything) or districts that do not include the town they are "named after" (e.g. Wangford). Julian ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan E. White" <family.historian@aewhite.me.uk> To: <family-historian-users@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 12:16 PM Subject: Re: [FHU] Which County? > I do use if that's all the > information I have (where they span counties, such as Sudbury, I > arbitrarily > use the county of the town which the district is named after). > > Alan

"What do you do for GRO registration districts that are not named after towns (e.g. Blything) or districts that do not include the town they are "named after" (e.g. Wangford)." I always put the fact that it's a district - eg person was born in Q4 1900 in Wangford registration district. Regards Shelagh

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. If all the information I have is the registration district (e.g. because I've identified the right event in the index but haven't yet obtained the certificate) then I use the district as it is. The question was "Which County?". Most districts are in only one county so I use that. Blything and Wangford are both entirely in Suffolk so they become Blything, Suffolk, England Wangford, Suffolk, England The example I gave, Sudbury, covers places in Suffolk and Essex. However, the town of Sudbury is in Suffolk so that becomes Sudbury, Suffolk, England I hope that makes things clearer, but it's still just "my" way of doing things :-) Alan > -----Original Message----- > From: family-historian-users-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:family-historian-users-bounces@rootsweb.com] On > Behalf Of Julian Chilvers - CN > Sent: 23 February 2012 16:49 > To: family-historian-users@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [FHU] Which County? > > > What do you do for GRO registration districts that are not > named after towns > (e.g. Blything) or districts that do not include the town > they are "named > after" (e.g. Wangford). > > Julian > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Alan E. White" <family.historian@aewhite.me.uk> > To: <family-historian-users@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 12:16 PM > Subject: Re: [FHU] Which County? > > > > I do use if that's all the > > information I have (where they span counties, such as Sudbury, I > > arbitrarily > > use the county of the town which the district is named after). > > > > Alan > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word > 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body > of the message

I understand your approach - many others use the same method. I just think it is potentially confusing if you don't specify (e.g.by adding RD) that you are quoting a Registration District and not a place. I used that example because the village of Wangford happens to be in the Blything Registration District and not in the Wangford Registration District. Julian > Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. If all the information I have is the > registration district (e.g. because I've identified the right event in the > index but haven't yet obtained the certificate) then I use the district as > it is. > > The question was "Which County?". Most districts are in only one county so > I > use that. Blything and Wangford are both entirely in Suffolk so they > become > Blything, Suffolk, England > Wangford, Suffolk, England > > The example I gave, Sudbury, covers places in Suffolk and Essex. However, > the town of Sudbury is in Suffolk so that becomes > Sudbury, Suffolk, England > > I hope that makes things clearer, but it's still just "my" way of doing > things :-) > > Alan