Place:Copping Syke, Lincolnshire, England

NOTE: This location is not covered in Wikipedia.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Copping Syke from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"COPPING-SYKE, an extra-parochial tract in Boston district, Lincoln; contiguous to Bicker parish, and Langrick-Ville [Langriville] township, near Swineshead. Population, 42."

Also from A Vision of Britain through Time: "Copping Syke is now part of East Lindsey district. It was an extra parochial area until 1858 and then a civil parish 1858 until 1935."

However, GENUKI is more expansive and gives differing information: It is on the east bank of the River Witham, 8.5 miles northwest of Boston and just over 100 miles north of London. The area is flat fenland, only just 475 acres, drained by many small canals. It was formed in April, 1906. There is no record of a church. In 1900, Copping Syke was a hamlet in the parish of Langrivlle in Sibsey Rural District (absorbed by the Spilsby Rural District in 1936).

The parish reconstituted the civil parishes of Great Beats, Little Beats, and Seven Acres, as well as portions of Frampton and Wyberton parishes. Originally, it was assigned as part of the South Lindsey Division of the county, parts of Holland. The parish was in the ancient Kirton Wapentake in the East Lindsey division in the parts of Lindsey. In 1935, the parish was abolished to enlarge Wildmore parish in Horncastle Rural District. [This last sentence refutes the end of the previous paragraph.]

Research Tips for the Boston, Lincolnshire, Area

From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland (in the southeast), Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey (further north and/or west). These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were named, nonetheless.

The southern part of Lincolnshire, particularly the Parts of Holland, is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. These areas are named "The Fens".

Fenland is a feature of the Boston Rural District and Horncastle Rural District areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial until the mid 1850s, but were then identified with names and given the title "civil parish". Many were abolished in 1906, and became parts of larger neighbouring parishes. As a result, Wikipedia no longer provides articles on some of these small low-populated areas.

Sources

• OS New Popular One-Inch Map, Sheet 114, provided online by A Vision of Britain, is an early 20th century map covering the east part of Lincolnshire from Boston to Skegness. It does not list all the fen settlements, but does list all the towns and hamlets. Degrees of longitude and latitude are given along its sides. The map magnifies to a very high scale.

• Normally, A Vision of Britain would also be suggested as a source for parish boundary maps for the area. Unfortunately, this website has made an error in its map indexing and the sub-heading "Boundary Maps" repeats the maps given under "Topographic Maps". It is not possible to view outlines of the parishes located in this area.

• The National Library of Scotland [1] [1] also provides a large number of maps for all the counties and districts of England as well as those of Scotland. Their map indices for England only cover modern placenames, but they do allow the user to view a parish in relation to its neighbours. These maps are very easy to read.

• FindMyPast, a pay website, now has a large collection of Lincolnshire baptisms, banns, marriages and burials now available to search by name, year, place and parent's names.

• GENUKI's page on Lincolnshire's Archive Service gives addresses, phone numbers, webpages for all archive offices, museums and libraries in Lincolnshire which may store old records and also presents a list entitled "Hints for the new researcher" which may include details of which you are not aware. These suggestions are becoming more and more outdated.

• GENUKI also has pages of information on individual parishes, particularly ecclesiastical parishes. The author may just come up with morsels of information not supplied in other internet-available sources.

• Deceased Online, a pay website, now has records for 11 cemeteries and two crematoria in Lincolnshire. This includes Grimsby's Scartho Road cemetery, Scartho Road crematorium, and Cleethorpes cemetery, council records for the City of Lincoln and Gainsborough, and church records from the UK's National Archives for St Michael's in Stamford, and St Mark's in Lincoln, dating back to 1707.