Was Staffordshire England ever called Staffs?? like back in 1600's?

Question

Like wouldn't it be: Leek, Staffordshire not Leek, Staffs?  And shouldn't  it say England? 

Comments

Staffs is a common abbreviation for Staffordshire.

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Other common abbreviations

Beds, Bucks, Cambs, Ches, Derbys, Glos or Gloucs, Hants, Herefs, Herts, Hunts, Lancs, Leics, Lincs, Northants, Notts, Worcs, Yorks

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So those are okay for birth/death location in a profile?

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No. Full names should be used, the same goes for American places - no PA, MA, NY.

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Common abbreviations are used in all the sources.

Redundant clutter and verbiage makes stuff harder to read.

Petty pedantry drives users away.

Answer 1

My preference is not. Whatever we do we all need to use the same. The abbreviations aren't used in speech.

Answer 2

Abbreviated county names should not be used in location fields. Use of abbreviations can be confusing for those who are not familiar with them.

Comments

The abbreviations are less confusing.  Americans regularly confuse Herefordshire and Hertfordshire, and Lancashire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire, because they see too many similar letters.  L***c***shire, all one place.  With only 5 letters, it's easier to notice that 2 of them are different and to realise that it matters.

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To use your own example, isn't it far easier to confuse Lancs and Lincs rather than Lancashire and Lincolnshire? When it comes to places outside a persons home country the abbreviations can be very confusing. In the "PA, MA, NY" example quoted above I only guessed one of the three correctly (NY). MA I guessed might be Maryland, but then wondered if it might be Massachusetts. The possibility of Maine, although wrong, hadn't even occurred to me until I checked the list. The less said about PA the better (lets just say I don't always know which places in the USA are states and which are just cities!)

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Hunts and Hants are another pair that are frequently mistranscribed in censuses, usually with Hunts showing as Hants, or Hampshire written in full

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Hants wasn't the best-chosen abbreviation