Place talk:England

Modern government regions are fine for modern studies (and not irrelevant to the study of past centuries, eg "To which authority should I write to check on the current locations of archives for Xville?"). But a genealogy site should have more obvious links to a list of the "traditional counties", because over 80% of the country's decades that are of genealogical interest had those counties as the basis of most public records. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_counties_of_the_British_Isles

The same applies to Scotland, Wales, and (both current divisions of) Ireland.

Robin Patterson 00:37, 8 June 2006 (MDT)

Topics


Is England a "top level" place, or is it under the United Kingdom? [6 November 2007]

I removed Place:United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from England's located-in field and made it a see-also place, since its existence in the located-in field was creating problems with some of the place review processes that are being run right now, but it raises a question: Should England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland be "top-level" places, or should they be located in the United Kingdom? Specifically, after the renaming should all places in England end in ", England", or should they end in ", England, United Kingdom"? The same question applies to places in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.--Dallan 18:40, 5 November 2007 (EST)


Note that I don't deal with English genealogy all that much, but my vote is that they be a part of the UK, since that is the reality of the situation in the modern era. I don't see the practical problem with having it listed as a member of the UK? --Joeljkp 11:53, 6 November 2007 (EST)


It just makes the links / page titles longer, since the full chain of located-in places are going to be appended to the place titles in the upcoming renaming.--Dallan 18:00, 8 November 2007 (EST)


Place pages/names: Parishes vs villages [29 December 2010]

In England, the same name can be used for both a village and a parish (e.g., Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England). Since the parish name is not part of the hierarchy for English place names, should there be:

One place page for the village, called Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England
One place page for the parish, called Shalbourne Parish, Wiltshire, England

A discussion on Place talk:Scotland suggests the above as one of the options (although the way it is first presented, the suggestion is to have "parish" in parentheses - i.e., Shalbourne (parish), Wiltshire, England). The discussion for Scotland has no response, and therefore it is not clear if a standard has been set.

Should I go ahead and create a Shalbourne Parish, Wiltshire, England place page? If so, I would update the existing Place: Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England page to remove the link to Wikipedia, which no longer has a separate article for the village.

NOTE: It appears that when the Place: Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England page was created, the description (copied from Wikipedia) said:

Shalbourne is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. Besides Shalbourne itself, the parish includes the widely spaced settlements of Bagshot to the north, and Rivar and Oxenwood to the south.

The place page was created with a type of Village.

Now the description (from Wikipedia) says:

Shalbourne is a civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. Besides a village of the same name, the parish includes the widely spaced settlements of Bagshot to the north, and Rivar and Oxenwood to the south. Before 1895, about half of the parish of Shalbourne (including its church) lay in Berkshire.

The place page type is still village, but the description no longer matches that type.

Also, I would bet that some (many? most? all?) of the events pointing to Place:Shalbourne, Wiltshire, England really refer to the parish rather than the village (because the info will have been taken from parish registers), but I don't want to take the time to chase them down right now. Would it be safer to rename the existing Shalbourne page to Shalbourne Parish and change the type, and then create a new Shalbourne page for the village? Or should I simply change the type on the existing page from Village to Parish and be done with it? Thoughts? --DataAnalyst 10:04, 29 December 2010 (EST)


English Jurisdictions 1851 [17 October 2012]

Opened up my computer this morning to see a blog message on http://about.com/genealogy describing English Jurisdictions 1851. For any place in England it gives the historical parish, the civil parish, the poor law union, etc).

This is a very simple reference tool where one can check the historical parish, the civil parish, the poor law union, and the higher organizational authorities for any place in England. It is tied to Google maps so one can have a look at the present geographical picture as well. --goldenoldie 02:34, 17 October 2012 (EDT)


Modern County label [11 November 2012]

Quoting from the section "How places in England are organized" first paragraph:

"Unitary authorities were added in the 1990's. WeRelate labels metropolitan, non-metropolitan, and unitary authorities as "modern counties"."

In England, the term unitary authority usually refers to cities or urban connurbations. Only a few counties have become unitary authorities: Isle of Wight (1985) and Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire, and Wiltshire in 2009 (according to STATOIDS). Counties are far more likely to break themselves up into several unitary authorites, leaving themselves as ceremonial or geographical only.

Is the definition of an English ceremonial county in WR? I had to go over to WP to find it, but it may be hiding somewhere.

Is "unitary authority" on the list of types of places?

You may be thinking "ua" is too modern a term for us to bother with, but genealogists in Berkshire got very worried a few years ago when the county decided to break itself into 5 or 6 unitary authorities without a thought as to how to care for its centrally-stored archives.

--goldenoldie 06:39, 5 November 2012 (EST)

Unitary authority is on the list of place types. I don't think that English ceremonial county is defined anywhere. I came across it when trying to sort out English places when constructing the database; if you think it should be added, do you want to add it to Place:England?--Dallan 06:53, 11 November 2012 (EST)

No, I don't think we should add Ceremonial County. It really has no part in county structure, it just indicates that the county's new unitary authorities fall in with the rest of the county on ceremonial occasions (such as those being held today which happens to be 11 Nov--Remembrance Day). I think it is best to continue to define it via Wikipedia, i.e., [[wikipedia:ceremonial county|ceremonial county]] when required.

I had a laugh this morning when I found that someone had written
:''the text in this section is copied from an article in [[wikipedia:Bath|Wikipedia]]''
when they meant to write
:''the text in this section is copied from an article in [[wikipedia:Bath, Somerset|Wikipedia]]''
It has been corrected. --goldenoldie 08:38, 11 November 2012 (EST)


Statoids.com [4 January 2017]

Just in case anyone else is wondering what this is, I was tempted to add the following after its name on the England page.

A website entitled "Administrative Divisions of Countries" produced by an unnamed organization as an update to the book Administrative Subdivisions of Countries, by Gwillim Law (McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina). It claims to be an international standard and is written in the first person by someone whose name does not appear at the beginning of a very long website.

If anyone knows any more, please share it. --Goldenoldie 15:48, 4 January 2017 (UTC)