Tom Wetmore wrote: > To understand boundaries one must be an historian. If a genealogist truly wants to learn the nature > of all boundaries of all geo-political-eclesiastical entities that surrounded the areas where their > ancestors lived, either when their ancestors actually lived there, or as things are today, or both they > must invest in learning the necessary history. Isn't that simply the nature of the beast? It's fun to > bring up examples for the areas that we ourselves are experts, but it doesn't accomplish much in > the long run. > > Some genealogists care deeply about understanding places and recording the data by some system; > some don't. Some are happy just entering a name in field on a computer screen. Doesn't do them > any harm after all if things aren't correct. > > What would be very handy, and someday we will get there, is software that will take as input any > point on the globe (specified by either latitude and longitude, or just clicking on an adequately > scaled map), that then outputs the compete history of all the many overlapping, possibly conflicting, > multi-lingual, set of geopolitical entities that ever surrounded that point. Such gazetteers are > showing up with limited scopes (e.g., history of counties in the United States; history of the > changing boundaries and "provinces" making up Canada over its full history), so one can anticipate > the wonder we will feel when such an application appears. > > Other than that, it's just slog, slog, slog to learn the history that is needed. We all become experts > on small parts of the globe as we push back and find where our ancestors came from. I would not > have guessed that I would ever know a lot about Andreas Parish on the Isle of Man, or the towns in > Mongomeryshire, Wales, or the history of the fishing villages on Newfoundland, but when I found my > ancestors there is was simply the logical result of my research. I'm tempted to quote Mrs. Beeton and her recipe for jugged hare. When one is first looking into verifying data from a country not one's own, it is very helpful to know whether "Woodlands" is a house, a country, a church parish, or a county, or a local fish'n'chips joint. That discovery is aided by the inclusion of identifiers of the level of "house", "Parish", "county," "sanitary district", or even "Sagittarius Arm". Cheryl

Blast from the past. Remember these people? In keeping with modern trends from enhanced searching here is a response to a thread from November 1994. It holds the first mentions of my program LifeLines in this group. 18 years later LifeLines is still free and a popular choice for UNIX (including Linux and Mac OS X) systems. There weren't many free systems back then. What are the free ones today? Gramps is surely king. Are there others that folks have found that are easy to use and able to record all they information they wish? Tom Wetmore On Friday, November 11, 1994 2:14:43 PM UTC-5, Scott McGee wrote: > In article <NEWTNews.14770.784603562> writes: > > > >So in plain English, there is no shareware on an FTP server > >anywhere for people to use for geneology. > > > >Disappointing...but that is life...and fair to those who > >write software and want to be remunerated for it... > > > HUH? First off, I use LifeLines on a UNIX system and I got the first version > from an FTP site. Later, when then new version was anounced, I got it > directly from the author (FOR FREE) and it is now avilible by ftp too. > > I would be HIGHLY suprised if some PC and MAC software wasn't also freely > availible! > > Oh, before I go, let me add a public thanks to Tom Wetmore for first writing > LifeLines (The best genealogy program there is!) and then for making it > freely availible. Thanks Tom! > > Scott

"Harrison Genealogy" <bill@harrisongenealogy.co.uk> wrote in message news:mailman.2.1349001728.21514.gencmp@rootsweb.com... > Steven > > Just had a look at GENUKI regarding what you said and I was right they > were > moved .... in circ 1844 see below from GENUKI .... > > Ancient Parishes and Registers > With the exception of a few parishes, Bedfordshire formed the Archdeaconry > of Bedford, part of the diocese of Lincoln, until 1837, from 1837-1914 the > Archdeaconry was in the diocese of Ely and in the diocese of St Albans > from > 1914. > An exchange of parishes in 1844 saw part of Everton move to > Huntingdonshire, > Ickleford to Hertfordshire and parts of Meppershall and Studham into > Bedfordshire. A further exchange in 1899 saw Swineshead transferred into > Bedfordshire and Tilbrook into Huntingdonshire. err, no. I know about these boundary changes and they are not relevant to what I said. Steven

To understand boundaries one must be an historian. If a genealogist truly wants to learn the nature of all boundaries of all geo-political-eclesiastical entities that surrounded the areas where their ancestors lived, either when their ancestors actually lived there, or as things are today, or both they must invest in learning the necessary history. Isn't that simply the nature of the beast? It's fun to bring up examples for the areas that we ourselves are experts, but it doesn't accomplish much in the long run. Some genealogists care deeply about understanding places and recording the data by some system; some don't. Some are happy just entering a name in field on a computer screen. Doesn't do them any harm after all if things aren't correct. What would be very handy, and someday we will get there, is software that will take as input any point on the globe (specified by either latitude and longitude, or just clicking on an adequately scaled map), that then outputs the compete history of all the many overlapping, possibly conflicting, multi-lingual, set of geopolitical entities that ever surrounded that point. Such gazetteers are showing up with limited scopes (e.g., history of counties in the United States; history of the changing boundaries and "provinces" making up Canada over its full history), so one can anticipate the wonder we will feel when such an application appears. Other than that, it's just slog, slog, slog to learn the history that is needed. We all become experts on small parts of the globe as we push back and find where our ancestors came from. I would not have guessed that I would ever know a lot about Andreas Parish on the Isle of Man, or the towns in Mongomeryshire, Wales, or the history of the fishing villages on Newfoundland, but when I found my ancestors there is was simply the logical result of my research.

Steven Just had a look at GENUKI regarding what you said and I was right they were moved .... in circ 1844 see below from GENUKI .... <snip Ancient Parishes and Registers With the exception of a few parishes, Bedfordshire formed the Archdeaconry of Bedford, part of the diocese of Lincoln, until 1837, from 1837-1914 the Archdeaconry was in the diocese of Ely and in the diocese of St Albans from 1914. An exchange of parishes in 1844 saw part of Everton move to Huntingdonshire, Ickleford to Hertfordshire and parts of Meppershall and Studham into Bedfordshire. A further exchange in 1899 saw Swineshead transferred into Bedfordshire and Tilbrook into Huntingdonshire. <snip Regards Bill -----Original Message----- From: gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Steven Gibbs Sent: 30 September 2012 11:13 To: gencmp@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Entering place names, deja-vu all over again "Harrison Genealogy" <bill@harrisongenealogy.co.uk> wrote in message news:mailman.0.1348998970.21514.gencmp@rootsweb.com... > ORIGINALLY Parishes were contained within the County boundary. What > happens > is from time to time they change the COUNTY Boundary ..... this happened > even in the recent past where parts of Staffs, Warwickshire and > Worcestershire were "lumped together to make the "West Midlands" > > Perhaps I wasn't too clear in what I meant ..... probably I should have > said " ..... they did NOT originally stray across county boundarys ....." I don't think you are right. For example, Studham, Kensworth and Caddington are all traditional parishes that straddle the traditional Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire border. Steven ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GENCMP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Harrison Genealogy wrote: > Ian > > ORIGINALLY Parishes were contained within the County boundary. What happens > is from time to time they change the COUNTY Boundary ..... this happened > even in the recent past where parts of Staffs, Warwickshire and > Worcestershire were "lumped together to make the "West Midlands" > > Perhaps I wasn't too clear in what I meant ..... probably I should have > said " ..... they did NOT originally stray across county boundarys ....." Saddleworth was part of the West Riding until the recent past of 1974. It was part of Yorkshire wappentake (Agbrigg & Morley) & I recall reading that Domesday assessed the woodlands of Quick with those of Holme (goodness knows why, Holme's cross-Pennine connections are with Mottram in Cheshire, the obvious connection for Quick would have been Marsden). So the COUNTY boundary rearrangement is late. http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Rochdale/SaddleworthHistory.html explains how it came to be attached to Rochdale but http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/CBW/WRY/Saddleworth.html suggests that its original connection was with Yorkshire. So we're both wrong. It was the PARISH boundary which changed. Ian -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk

Steven Thanks for that Steve .... You learn something every day ...... Regards Bill -----Original Message----- From: gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Steven Gibbs Sent: 30 September 2012 11:13 To: gencmp@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Entering place names, deja-vu all over again "Harrison Genealogy" <bill@harrisongenealogy.co.uk> wrote in message news:mailman.0.1348998970.21514.gencmp@rootsweb.com... > ORIGINALLY Parishes were contained within the County boundary. What > happens > is from time to time they change the COUNTY Boundary ..... this happened > even in the recent past where parts of Staffs, Warwickshire and > Worcestershire were "lumped together to make the "West Midlands" > > Perhaps I wasn't too clear in what I meant ..... probably I should have > said " ..... they did NOT originally stray across county boundarys ....." I don't think you are right. For example, Studham, Kensworth and Caddington are all traditional parishes that straddle the traditional Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire border. Steven ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GENCMP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

"Harrison Genealogy" <bill@harrisongenealogy.co.uk> wrote in message news:mailman.0.1348998970.21514.gencmp@rootsweb.com... > ORIGINALLY Parishes were contained within the County boundary. What > happens > is from time to time they change the COUNTY Boundary ..... this happened > even in the recent past where parts of Staffs, Warwickshire and > Worcestershire were "lumped together to make the "West Midlands" > > Perhaps I wasn't too clear in what I meant ..... probably I should have > said " ..... they did NOT originally stray across county boundarys ....." I don't think you are right. For example, Studham, Kensworth and Caddington are all traditional parishes that straddle the traditional Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire border. Steven

Ian ORIGINALLY Parishes were contained within the County boundary. What happens is from time to time they change the COUNTY Boundary ..... this happened even in the recent past where parts of Staffs, Warwickshire and Worcestershire were "lumped together to make the "West Midlands" Perhaps I wasn't too clear in what I meant ..... probably I should have said " ..... they did NOT originally stray across county boundarys ....." Sorry for that Regards Bill -----Original Message----- From: gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Ian Goddard Sent: 28 September 2012 11:30 To: gencmp@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Entering place names, deja-vu all over again Harrison Genealogy wrote: > The only thing about parishes is they did NOT stray across county > boundaries. Oh yes they did: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Maps/WRYParishes.gif It's pre-1974 as can be seen by the fact that Cheshire extends to border Almondbury & Penistone. Note parts of Whalley & Rochdale. -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GENCMP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

"Tom Wetmore" <ttw4@verizon.net> wrote in message news:a241c9d3-c06b-4c45-ac58-398e3fc10ec2@googlegroups.com... > Cheryl: "I came down firmly against including the parish name. This week > that viewpoint hardened even more, thanks to a relative-by-marriage who > died about a year ago." > > Tom's translation: "Don't record parish names." I know this thread is really about church parishes but in England a 'civil parish' is an administrative subdivision below county and distinct. Hence, a civil parish should always be recorded. I'm ambivalent about church parishes, having come from a long line of atheists who probably didn't care (at least since civil registrations were introduced). Tony Proctor

Harrison Genealogy wrote: > The only thing about parishes is they did NOT stray across county > boundaries. Oh yes they did: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Maps/WRYParishes.gif It's pre-1974 as can be seen by the fact that Cheshire extends to border Almondbury & Penistone. Note parts of Whalley & Rochdale. -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk

Bob Melson wrote: > On Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:02:35 -0400 singhals opined: > >> Tom Wetmore wrote: >>> Cheryl: "I came down firmly against including the parish name. This >>> week that viewpoint hardened even more, thanks to a >>> relative-by-marriage who died about a year ago." >>> >>> Tom's translation: "Don't record parish names." >> >> I believe the last paragraph of that OP mentioned the >> inclusion or omission of the word "parish"? >> >> Cheryl >> > > Of course, here in the US we have to distinguish between church > parishes and those occupying the place of counties in the Pelican > State. A flat "prohibition" is bound to turn around and byte you on > the nether regions. And let's not forget the Old Dominion, which has > cities and counties as separate-but-equal political entities. > (g) And hail to the soul who can tell a parish from a Parish while speaking! Stipulated on Virginia. And you cannot imagine how tired I get of trying to convince people accustomed to using township records (rather than county or state records) that despite the designation on the census page, Virginia and West Virginia do not have townships. We have districts, and if those districts are used for anything other than reporting filters and real-estate designators, I've never known a Virginian who could tell me what that use is! Or the number of times I've had to explain that in Washington DC, the letters NW, SW, NE, and NW *MUST* be included in addresses if you want the thing delivered. (or, the number of times I've had to have North South Temple West translated!) > Yeah, I understand, your problem is with Swedish > political/ecclesiastical subdivisions, about which I have no opinion > (Hey, I've got enough problems with Finnish places and surnames - which > followed (or maybe not) Swedish practices up to about 1900.) > > I guess what I'm saying is that so long as you are (able to be) > consistent in how you enter place names, it doesn't really appear to > make much of a difference. Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to enter > city, political subdivision, higher political subdivision, still higher > ps, country, or some such, but ... Explanatory notes are always > helpful to the reader. As I've said before, here, if I'm not mistaken, my street address is (religiously) in 3 church parishes, an LDS Ward, is "served" by 8 other Christian denominations and a couple independent congregations, as well as three Jewish congregations and two Hindu temples. It has a EMT designation, a real estate designation, a water-company designation, an electric company designation, a natural-gas company designation, a postal address. However unique that combination of designations IS, no one wants them in a PLACE NAME field. And, I'm blinked if I can see the usefulness of any of 'em 80 years from now...when they will ALL have changed. But, if you want to put them in the notes (i.e., record them), your time, your database. But for the love of Mike don't send me "4t7s49" as a place and expect me to know at a glance which company uses it as a designator. Cheryl

Tom Wetmore wrote: > Cheryl, Sorry to have been confused by your post. Thanks for pointing out which part you meant and which part you didn't. Just to be sure, you do think we should record parish names? For clarity: Let's agree on what the argument is about first. There is a difference between recording a fact at all and designating where it is to be recorded. IF you have a church parish, and IF you know whether that particular record is from a Catholic, CofE, or Lutheran parish, it's useful to know in the future, so yes, it should be recorded and kept. I disagree that it should merit a spot in the PLACE-NAME slot of any program. IF you insist on putting it in the Place-name slot, then all I asked was that you include the word Parish after the parish name, so the casual reader could tell whether he was looking at (or for) a town, a parish, a district, a county, or a chimera. If it makes you feel any better (probably won't), I have the same testy reaction to a record that tells me the place is Willing township, Massachusetts. This requires the reader first to ascertain whether this is a unique identifier (it isn't), then to determine which of the possible Willing twps it might reference. By contrast, "Whitmore County Massachusetts" IS a unique identifier -- there is only one...and finding the townships within a county is a whale of a lot faster than finding the counties that have a specific township. [N.B.: place names in THIS post are fictional and do not, AFAIK, exist in reality.] Just as some fixate on townships, some fixate on the parish name. This is fine so long as those so-fixated never attempt to communicate in any way with someone fixated on the other or on some 3rd system. But, RECORDING something and including it in (specific field) are separate issues. So, to answer the question: Yes, I favor /recording/ it; No, I do not favor /including/ it in the place-name field because putting it there clouds communication. Cheryl

All Just giving my view here as a UK researcher being "doing" it for the past 40+ years !.... You MUST if at all possible give the Parish .... That's the way you find Baptisms, Marriages and Burials in UK Church records. NB you will not specifically find Births or Deaths in Parish records, the dates of birth or death maybe noted in a Baptism or burial record but will not be a specific entry. You need to understand that Parish boundaries had NO relationship to villages or towns. A town or village might lie in more than one parish. (Ex - Oakamoor in north staffs ... a village of about 500 people lies in 3 parishes) The only thing about parishes is they did NOT stray across county boundaries. The only exception to that is METHODIST records which are recorded in Circuits rather than Parishes and Methodist Circuits can stray across county boundaries. Remember that Register Office marriages (from 1837) are ONLY recorded in the Registrar's Office books and will NOT be found in any church records. Also at certain times large parishes were split up into smaller ones and called by other names. Hope this helps ! Regards Bill -----Original Message----- From: gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:gencmp-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Tom Wetmore Sent: 28 September 2012 03:07 To: gencmp@rootsweb.com Cc: gencmp@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Entering place names, deja-vu all over again Cheryl, Sorry to have been confused by your post. Thanks for pointing out which part you meant and which part you didn't. Just to be sure, you do think we should record parish names? ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GENCMP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Tom Wetmore wrote: > Cheryl: "I came down firmly against including the parish name. This week that viewpoint hardened even more, thanks to a relative-by-marriage who died about a year ago." > > Tom's translation: "Don't record parish names." I believe the last paragraph of that OP mentioned the inclusion or omission of the word "parish"? Cheryl

On Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:02:35 -0400 singhals opined: >Tom Wetmore wrote: >> Cheryl: "I came down firmly against including the parish name. This >> week that viewpoint hardened even more, thanks to a >> relative-by-marriage who died about a year ago." >> >> Tom's translation: "Don't record parish names." > >I believe the last paragraph of that OP mentioned the >inclusion or omission of the word "parish"? > >Cheryl > Of course, here in the US we have to distinguish between church parishes and those occupying the place of counties in the Pelican State. A flat "prohibition" is bound to turn around and byte you on the nether regions. And let's not forget the Old Dominion, which has cities and counties as separate-but-equal political entities. Yeah, I understand, your problem is with Swedish political/ecclesiastical subdivisions, about which I have no opinion (Hey, I've got enough problems with Finnish places and surnames - which followed (or maybe not) Swedish practices up to about 1900.) I guess what I'm saying is that so long as you are (able to be) consistent in how you enter place names, it doesn't really appear to make much of a difference. Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to enter city, political subdivision, higher political subdivision, still higher ps, country, or some such, but ... Explanatory notes are always helpful to the reader. My US$0.02 and I'm sticking to it. Sufferin' Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cheryl, Sorry to have been confused by your post. Thanks for pointing out which part you meant and which part you didn't. Just to be sure, you do think we should record parish names?

Recently a friend filmed our singing group entertaining? some nursing home residents. Later my friend gave me a copy of the film on a DVD. Now I'd like to copy that disk onto another but have no idea just how to do so. Can anyone advise me, please? Noreen

Google "Copy from DVD to DVD". Kurt F On 2012-09-27 11:30, Noreen wrote: > Recently a friend filmed our singing group entertaining? some nursing home > residents. Later my friend gave me a copy of the film on a DVD. Now I'd > like to copy that disk onto another but have no idea just how to do so. Can > anyone advise me, please? > > Noreen > >

Cheryl: "I came down firmly against including the parish name. This week that viewpoint hardened even more, thanks to a relative-by-marriage who died about a year ago." Tom's translation: "Don't record parish names."