Discussion standardising Whether to use U.K in location field or just the country

Question

Hi,

Most of the profiles I work on are English, and most of my ancestry is too so I would love to be able to make sure the profiles I am working on fit the standards.

What is the standards the locations, specifically after using country is that the last bloc or should we be adding U.K, or whatever is relevant at that time. e.g Leeds, West Riding of a Yorkshire, England or Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom of ...; Manchester, Lancashire, England or Manchester, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom of ...

I know there has already been a question on this recently, so I'm hoping we can discuss it here.

Can we come up with a guideline

P.S talking about the location data field on the biography rather than categories, and asking do we want the guideline to say if we use UK or not

 

PPS From what I'm seeing so far most say hamlet/village/town/smallest unit, (sometimes with parish), county, and then country (Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland) with NO U.K on the end

Answer 1

Using you example of Leeds, the appropriate place location would be Leeds, Yorkshire, England, and placed in the Category Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, Yorkshire.

Comments

So you wouldn't use ... riding in the location on the bio? I usually do include it.

This is why there needs to be some guidelines for profiles for the U.K the idea to use their convention not ours is so broad.

---

I would use the riding, if that is what it was known as at the time of the event.

So, for example, I have 1 ancestor who I believe was born in the North riding of Yorkshire, but buried in County Durham, due to the border having been moved. Others were moved from Essex to London for the same reason.

To me, the name at time is what counts as without it, others have no chance of finding records.

---

Sorry for the delay in replying.

Yorkshire is an ideal county to focus upon, as parts have been in & out of the County over many years. For generations Yorkshire has been the Ridings (Three parts, North, East & West) plus Ainsty and York (where they all met). Since mid 1990's, Yorkshire is four parts, North, East, South & West. For instance, Sheffield is presently South Yorkshire but throughout history and where all main genealogy records are presented, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In a profile of a person born & died in Sheffield, both locations of birth & death should read Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. The profile's BIOS would be correct to refer to the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Categorise the profile within the UK Project then it would read:

[[United Kingdom|England|West Riding of Yorkshire, Yorkshire|Sheffield]]

Likewise, London is so small that it relates to only a small area, The City of London. Everywhere else should relate to the counties where records are found, particularly now the defunct County of Middlesex. Examples, Holborn,- Middlesex, Southwark,- Surrey, Greenwich,- Kent. 

   

 

---

Ok I thought the UK project had decided on including the riding for what ever the place was in at the time a while back to use in the location fields/bio, so thats what I've been doing.

And wasn't the change from the ridings in the 70s

---

One of the many changes occurred in 1974, which lost the old Ridings, created South, West & North Yorkshire, Humberside, Cleveland and parts lost to Lancashire. Then it all changed again, I believe in 1990's to reform into four parts of the compass!

Answer 2

If we are to use the official longer versions of the names they would be for a England:

Prior to 10th century England was not unified.

..., Kingdom of England (c10th Century - 1707)

..., Kingdom of Great Britain (1707 - 1800)

..., United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801-1922)

..., United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1923 - Present)

Scotland:

..., Kingdom of Scotland (843 - 1707)

..., Kingdom of Great Britain (1707 - 1800)

..., United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801-1922)

..., United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1923 - Present)

and so on for Wales and Ireland

Comments

But of course the Border wasn't always where it is now.

And any Kingdom that may have existed in future-Scotland in 843 was certainly a lot smaller than the Scotland of 1707 or even that of Bruce.

Wales was never a unified independent entity.  The largest independent Principality that ever existed only controlled a fraction of Wales.

---

True, and I don't favour this naming option I think we should just use the country names but there doesn't appear to be any discussions or guidelines like there is for America

Regardless of actual georgraphy I think we have to sort out names first before figuring out the 'border areas'

---

As an example, Stisted, Essex, England in the 1800s but now Stisted, Braintree, Essex, England would be what I would use.

Stisted is the village and parish, but was absorbed into the civil authority of Braintree Rural District in 19894 and then the District of Braintree in 1974.

---

The problem here is that Braintree wasn't in Braintree Rural District.  So Braintree, Essex, England would mean the Urban District, and Stisted wasn't part of that.

In fact Braintree Rural District was in two disconnected parts and didn't contain its own HQ, which was at Bocking, not Braintree.

This sort of thing happens a lot with Rural Districts.  I'd avoid them.

Answer 3

A good question!

My general policy is to follow the documentation (unless it's obviously wrong) and I always add a county to a town, even when it's redundant (e.g. Lincoln, Lincolnshire). I don't add UK as all my known ancestors are from the UK so it's obvious from context.

I'm a believer in the "more is better" school of information so when possible I give birth locations as (Hamlet,) Parish, Town/Diocese/Registration District, County. This helps avoid confusion when different sources may have different locations for the same event.

Edit 3/4/2017: Since I wrote the above Wikitree has added the location drop-down menu. I now use this wherever possible and think that should be the standard (and it does include United Kingdom).

Comments

I sometimes add the parish too, especially if the birth, christening, marriage, death places are different but in the same parish. E,g Ainderby Quernhow, [Parish of Pickhill], North Riding of Yorkshire, England

---

As we are creating one global tree, I'd have thought country would be essential, particularly as people from overseas might not be familiar with where these places are. I generally put England.

---

I always put county and country (never found a need to put parish), because settlers had the habit of calling their new home by the name of the old one i.e. Paris, Wellington etc.  But I never put UK.  If you were able to ask ancestors where they came from, I'll bet almost NONE of them would answer 'UK'.  They would say 'England' or 'Wales' or 'Scotland'.  And I don't feel a need to identify where 'England' is.

Answer 4

As far as I can tell from reading other G2G discussions, the consensus in all cases except this one is for the last part of a location field to be the sovereign state (I’m avoiding the word “country” because it’s considered ambiguous in this case) that the location was in at the time.

For locations in England, that would mean including “United Kingdom” for events after 1801, and including “Great Britain” for events from 1707 to 1800. WikiTree policy about avoiding abbreviations suggest to me that these should ideally be spelled out rather than abbreviated to “UK” or “GB”.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t currently appear to be any consensus about whether to do this for locations in the UK, but I personally choose to do so when adding profiles myself.

Answer 5

Wasn't Chris planning to standardize on the LDS placename database?

Comments

I think he was going to check into it, but I don't think it's been decided yet.