Few, if any, can be familiar with every place name in Britain, especially as pronounced locally or misheard or mispelt by enumerators, but for a start it’s always worth (1) Checking a later or an earlier census (except the 1841) to see if you can find the person’s birthplace written more clearly (unless they are dead, of course!) (2) Using the free Parish Locator software to search for parishes within a radius of the place of the census if you are dealing with the same or a bordering county (Sheepy Magna would have shown up within 10 miles of Grendon, for example) (3) Doing a quick Google search or checking the Ordnance Survey map online (also free) to see if you can find a likely name in the right county (4) Remembering that it’s very common for people to shorten local names, all the more so if they have Latin or Frenchified handles and when there’s no need to distinguish them from another place of the same name in a different part of the country. No-one in Warwickshire will imagine you want to go to Stratford in London or to Stony Stratford (and even less likely to Stratford, Ontario) if you ask the way to Stratford. MAR in France

Except the assumptions in the last point can mislead. I have someone in a south Warwickshire parish described in a census as born in Barton. The assumption might be that this is Barton-on-the-Heath, 4 miles away, but in fact she was baptised in Steeple Barton, OXF, 10 miles away, in one of the cluster of villages sometimes collectively known as Barton. David ramaix wrote: > > Few, if any, can be familiar with every place name in Britain, especially as pronounced locally or misheard or mispelt by enumerators, but for a start it’s always worth > > (1) Checking a later or an earlier census (except the 1841) to see if you can find the person’s birthplace written more clearly (unless they are dead, of course!) > (2) Using the free Parish Locator software to search for parishes within a radius of the place of the census if you are dealing with the same or a bordering county (Sheepy Magna would have shown up within 10 miles of Grendon, for example) > (3) Doing a quick Google search or checking the Ordnance Survey map online (also free) to see if you can find a likely name in the right county > (4) Remembering that it’s very common for people to shorten local names, all the more so if they have Latin or Frenchified handles and when there’s no need to distinguish them from another place of the same name in a different part of the country. No-one in Warwickshire will imagine you want to go to Stratford in London or to Stony Stratford (and even less likely to Stratford, Ontario) if you ask the way to Stratford. > > MAR in France > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to WARWICK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -- David Franks, Cambridge, England Researching Castle and Tallis, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, and Thomas Castle, convict transported to Van Diemen’s Land Warwickshire Online Parish Clerks http://www.hunimex.com/warwick/opc/opc.html