Of course, as well as alternative names we also have to be aware of the dates when names and location were changed. And it not just because of a change of country, as towns and cities have extended they have included villages that used to be a separate location, and in the case of the county of Middlesex it has completely disappeared.
So Stepney was a separate village in Middlesex to the east of London. By the start of the 1800s it was still in Middlesex, but was just about joined by buildings to London, In 1889 the County of London was created which occupied the City of London and parts of Essex, Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. From 1900 Stepney was part of the Stepney metropolitan borough, which replaced the ancient parish vestries and district boards. That was replaced in 1965 by Greater London, which took over most of Middlesex, with parts going to Hertfordshire and Surrey, along with parts of Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey and Kent. So now Stepney is part of the Tower Hamlets borough. Given that my ancestors were based in Middlesex I have tended to use the ancient Middlesex county, even for entries relating to dates after 1889, but really I should be using a mixture of Stepney, Middlesex or Stepney, London or Stepney, Tower Hamlets, Greater London. Regards Chris -----Original Message----- From: LegacyUserGroup [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Hayes Sent: 14 April 2017 06:36 To: Legacy User Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] speaking of location names On 14 Apr 2017 at 10:35, [email protected] wrote: > A few months ago I sent a suggestion to Legacy for the ability to add > a number of name variations for locations, instead of only a short > version. I have diverse ancestry from different parts of Europe where > it is very common for the same location to have been under various > countries or empires through history. Genealogists are supposed to use > the location name as it was at the time of the event. You also learn a > little more about the lives of ancestors if you know whether they > lived under the Russian and /or Austrian Empires and /or Napoleon > Bonaparte´s empire etc. Geo location can distract family historians > from researching the actual borders of the time, finding interesting information and factors causing ancestors to emigrate etc. Yes, I try, where possible, to do that, but FamilySearch seems to want to use the current name of a place, regardless of when the event took place. And it sometimes has standardised on completely inaccurate place names, and suggests "standard" names that would mean that a place would have to be in two or more different places, none of them within 500 miles of where it actually is. The German ones are particularly difficult, and, being unaware of all the historical nuances, I usually enter things like "Woddow, Brandenburg, Ueckermark, Prussia" even for periods when I'm not sure how accurate it is. It does, however, mean that in Legacy, one can had 3-4 different place name entries for the same physical location. For example, I have Johannesburg, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (short form ZAR) Johannesburg, Transvaal Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa (short form RSA) Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. and there was even a period when Gauteng was known as PWV FamilySearch now wants to tack "United Kingdom" on to places in England, Scotland and Wales, at the very time when the Brexit vote makes it uncertain hoe long the UK will last, and it wants that name for periods even before the United Kingdom was formed. I'm reminded of the book which features Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat from "Alice in Wonderland", only it introduces itself as "the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat". Of course one can always record a history of the changes of name and jurisdiction in the location notes, and perhaps that is the way to go. > > I admit however, it can get very complicated. I am the only family historian > or genealogist that I know of who is "nutty" enough to attempt using > accurate location names for the extremely complex territories of the German > Holy Roman Empire- I think Family Search only uses locations as they were > after the 1815 Congress of Vienna which made enormous changes to borders > throughout Europe. > > You can however be rewarded with very fascinating stories e.g. I have > ancestors who lived in a culturally German district which was a tiny French > exclave which had been geographically located within a bigger exclave of the > Duchy of Lorraine. These ancestors emigrated to a corner of "Poland" which > had been taken by the Austrian Empire. They, with other German families > established their own colony/settlement. This region then fell to Napoleon, > becoming part of the Duchy of Warsaw. It then went to the Russian Empire > ("Russian Poland"). All this in one ancestor´s lifetime! Other branches > of my family tree also have fascinating stories relating to locations. > > Researching locations takes time so I mostly research my direct ancestors and > sometimes their siblings, rather than spending time finding thousands of > distant cousins which to me seems pointless and much less interesting. > > John > -- Steve Hayes E-mail: [email protected] Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Fax: 086-548-2525 -- LegacyUserGroup mailing list [email protected] To manage your subscription and unsubscribe http://legacyusers.com/mailman/listinfo/legacyusergroup_legacyusers.com Archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ -- LegacyUserGroup mailing list [email protected] To manage your subscription and unsubscribe http://legacyusers.com/mailman/listinfo/legacyusergroup_legacyusers.com Archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
