Mike, Can I just reinforce what Nivard and Roy have said? Birthplace could reflect a village, a parish or a registration district. Think of it as "in the vicinity of". You really need to compare data from every available census with actual BDM events. I've found some where suggested birthdates and birthplaces are different in every census. I notice in 1861 census a lot of ODDY & SCOTT names with birthplace as Idle. There are too many to look at each individual. For pre 1837 events, I'd direct you to Family Search using Idle as the location. You might also check Hugh Wallis batches for Idle Post 1837, use FreeBMD but that only gives Registration district. Perhaps somebody knows the Registration District for Idle. You should also be able to find records for Idle in West Yorkshire BDMs on Ancestry. Peter

From: "Peter R Booth" <pbo08596@bigpond.net.au> > Can I just reinforce what Nivard and Roy have said? Birthplace > could reflect a village, a parish or a registration district. Think of it > as "in the vicinity of". > > You really need to compare data from every available census with > actual BDM events. I've found some where suggested birthdates and > birthplaces are different in every census. > > I notice in 1861 census a lot of ODDY & SCOTT names with > birthplace as Idle. There are too many to look at each individual. > > For pre 1837 events, I'd direct you to Family Search using Idle > as the location. You might also check Hugh Wallis batches for Idle > > Post 1837, use FreeBMD but that only gives Registration > district. Perhaps somebody knows the Registration District for Idle.> Idle has variously been in Bradford Registration District (1837-1891), North Bierley (a new Registration District created on ist Jan 1892 from the parishes of Allerton, Calverley with Farsley, Clayton, Cleckheaton, Drighlington, Eccleshill, Heaton, Hunsworth, Idle, North Bierley, Pudsey, Shipley, Thornton, Tong, Wilsden, and Wyke), then back to Bradford (1939-1974). I'm not sure which RD it's been in since the 1974 re-organisation but that's probably irrelevant anyway to most people's researches. There is a very simple way at FreeBMD to discover which parishes and places were in which registration district at any given moment in time. Call up a number of entries (I used my own name Stockdill, since we're overwhelmingly a Bradford family), then click on the underlined blue link of the RD. This takes you to a message telling you which county it's in (many districts overlap into more than one county) and there is another underlined link with the word "here". Click on this and you will get a complete list of all the sub-districts and parishes in the RD, with dates, plus a table at the bottom of the screen giving you all the various changes - some parishes went into another districts, others were incorporated. Many people don't seem to know about this and they ought to because it's very important! BTW, talking of Idle there is a very famous club called "The Idle Working Men's Club" which a cousin of mine belongs to and he tells me they have a waiting list of people all over the world who want to join it! There's also a chap who is always at the big family history fair on York Racecourse (Saturday June 30 this year) and he calls his stand "The Idle Bookseller". -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE