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Archiver > TMG > 2001-08 > 0996717214


From: "Caroline Gurney" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Place names in the United Kingdom
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 02:57:32 +0100
References: <NCBBIGMOGLNOAMBJFIJLKEMKCGAA.martyr@charter.net>


Marty,

First of all, I am afraid there are a few problems with the place names
themselves. There is no place called London in Herefordshire to my knowledge
(or in my map books) although there are parishes called Letton, Lingen,
Linton & Lucton. However, there is a place called London Colney in
Hertfordshire. Could that be the one you have in your dataset? It is very
easy for people outside the UK to confuse these 2 counties as the spelling
of their names only differs by one letter.

As for your second place, the county is spelled Radnorshire, but I can find
no parish named Clarice. The nearest guess would seem to be Clyro (lovely
place by the way).

Finally, there are 3 parishes called St Bartholomew in the City of London:
St Bartholomew by the Exchange, St Bartholomew the Great & St Bartholomew
the Less.

With all these places you really need to go back & check your sources.

As to how to enter them, the US oriented location fields in TMG don't map
very well to UK place names & different UK users do different things. As
people are always saying on this List, you can use TMG in the way that suits
you best. So I can only tell you what I do personally.

First, a couple of basic points. Don't add the word "Parish" to the parish
name or "County" to the county name, as this sounds very odd to British
ears.

Secondly, when alternative place name labels were introduced to TMG, Wholly
Genes added the label "Parish" to the US County field which I personally
don't like. This is because the relationship between towns/cities & their
parishes can be so varied. Historically many parishes were more or less
contiguous with the boundaries of a village, with a few outlying farms
thrown in. Others (eg in Yorkshire) were very large & contained several
towns or townships. But cities & even some relatively modestly sized towns,
contained several parishes. My general rule is to put the parish in the City
field where it equates to a town & in the Detail field where it is one of
several parishes in a city or town.

There is no need to change the place labels to match your chosen scheme - I
don't bother - but if you do, you will need to use something like "Parish
of" to put it in the City or Detail field, because the label "Parish" is
already taken by the County field & can't be used more than once or moved.
If you want to put parish details in both the City & Detail fields as I do,
you will need 2 separate labels (perhaps "Parish of" & "Parish*").

Finally, London is a particular headache: one urban area divided into 2
historic cities (City of London & City of Westminster) and divided between 2
counties (London & Middlesex). For many purposes in UK genealogy it is
treated as a County & my usual rule is to enter it in that field in TMG,
placing the district of the city (eg Westminster) in the City field & the
parish name in the Detail field.

So, to take your examples, I would proceed as follows:

Example 1:

City [alternative label "Town"] = London Colney?
County = Hertfordshire?
Country = England

Example 2:

City [alternative label "Parish of"] = Clyro?
County = Radnorshire
Country = Wales

Example 3:

Detail = [alternative label "Parish*] St Bartholomew (by the Exchange? /the
Great? /the Less?)
City = City of London
County = London
Country = England

Best wishes,

Caroline Gurney
Portsmouth, UK


----- Original Message -----
From: "Marty Ryerson" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 1:43 AM
Subject: [TMG] Place names in the United Kingdom


> I have found that there are a few people in my database that were born in
> England and Wales.
>
> Caroline (and others in the U.K.) please forgive my ignorance, but I am
not
> sure how to enter these place names correctly.
>
> I have:
> London, Herefordshire, England
> Clarice Parish, Radnishire, S. Wales
> St. Bartholomew Parish, London, England
>
> I am not sure if a Parish, in these cases, is a subdivision of a city, or
of
> a county, or equivalent to a county. I know London is a city in England
> (I'm not a complete alien <g>) but I don't know where the Parishes go.


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