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Nobility of the British Isles and Ireland - recategorisation plan

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"Nobility of the British Isles" categorisation plan March 2022

This page sets out the proposals to modify the category structure for the Nobility of the British Isles starting in March 2022.

Effective November 2022: the top level category has been renamed "Nobility of the British Isles and Ireland"

Effective May 2023: The Categories of "Royalty" have been renamed "Monarchs"

Effective July 2023: the legacy categories of "Countess of..." for wives of Earls have been removed. See "Practicalities of Implementation" section below.

Aim: to resolve inconsistencies in naming and the existing category hierarchy, in order to make the categories easier to use consistently and avoid errors in category selection.

Background

The British Isles comprise the four nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, together with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, and their various historic combinations (Great Britain, United Kingdom).

The relationship between the four nations which formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland evolved in stages.

  • England annexed Wales in 1284; Ireland remained a separate country even though it had the same monarch.
  • In the following years the system of peerages began to develop.
  • When James VI of Scotland inherited the crowns of England and Ireland in 1603, all of the British Isles had the same monarch, but it was not until 1707 that England and Scotland formally united as the Kingdom of Great Britain.
  • Ireland formally united with Great Britain in 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (AKA the United Kingdom)
  • Most of Ireland became independent of the United Kingdom in 1922.

This complex history means that titles in the peerage and baronetage [1] are classed in the standard reference works as being either England (which confusingly includes Wales), Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain or United Kingdom; whereas the titles themselves might more naturally appear to be English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh, according to the principal seat of the initial holder of the title.

The new category structure shown below allows each title in the nobility to be placed within its correct peerage or baronetage, in parallel with being located in its natural geographic country.
Examples of the structures are shown with the following

  • Earls of Ancaster (Nobility category: Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, Location category: England, Earls)
  • Baronets Vivian of Singleton (Nobility category: Baronetage of the United Kingdom, Location category: Wales, Baronets)

Nobility categories

Location Categories


Nesting in parallel streams (Location and Nobility)

Practicalities of implementing this category system

When a woman holds a title by right of inheritance ("de jure"), she is included in the category for that title and in the sequential numbering of the title. (For example the women who have held the title Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestead are included in the category of.

A woman who has a courtesy title as the wife of the holder of that title is not included in the category.

Monarchs (was "Royalty" until May 2023)

  • Virtually all the profiles which are eligible to be in these categories are already Project Managed and will be recategorised by those Country Projects.
  • The landing level category is [[:Category:Monarchs of appropriate country or political union]]
  • The higher categories are [[:Category:Nobility of appropriate country or political union]] and [[:Category:appropriate country, Monarchs]]

Dukes

  • Most profiles are Project Managed and will be recategorised by those Projects.
  • The landing level category is [[:Category: Dukes of Place]]
  • Note the plural Dukes in the category setup.
  • The higher categories are [[:Category: Dukes in the Peerage of appropriate Peerage]] and [[:Category: appropriate country, Dukes]]

Earls

  • Most profiles are Project Managed and will be recategorised by those Projects.
  • The landing level category is [[:Category: Earls of Place]] (most common) or [[:Category: Earls Surname]]
  • Note the plural Earls in the category setup.
  • The higher categories are [[:Category: Earls in the Peerage of appropriate Peerage]] and [[:Category:appropriate country, Earls]]

Marquesses

  • Most profiles are Project Managed and all will be recategorised by those Projects. Note the spelling Marquess (English language) rather than Marquis (French language).
  • The landing level category is nearly always [[:Category: Marquesses of place]] where "place" is the territorial designation. A very few Marquessates are [[:Category: Marquesses Surname]]
  • Note the plural Marquesses in the category setup.
  • The higher categories are [[:Category: Marquesses in the Peerage of appropriate Peerage]] and [[:Category:appropriate country, Marquesses]]

Viscounts

  • A majority of these profiles are Project Managed and will be recategorised by those Projects.
  • The landing level category is [[:Category: Viscounts of designation]] where "designation" is either the family surname of the original holder or the territorial designation. Sometimes the designation will combine the two as Viscount [surname] of [place].
  • Note the plural Viscounts in the category setup.
  • The higher categories are [[:Category: Viscounts in the Peerage of appropriate Peerage]] and [[:Category:appropriate country, Viscounts]]

Barons (and Baronesses)

  • A lot of these profiles are Project Managed, and all will be recategorised by those Projects when the existing Baron categories are corrected.
  • The landing level category is [[:Category: Barons designation]] where "designation" is either the surname of the original holder or the territorial designation.
  • Note the plural Barons.
  • The higher categories are [[:Category: Barons in the Peerage of appropriate Peerage]] and [[:Category:appropriate country, Barons]]
  • Both men and women are entitled to inherit the title. When a woman is the current holder of the title, she has the title "Baroness [designation]" and is counted in the numbering system. (For example, Jane Forwood is the 11th Baroness Arlington, succeeding the 10th Baron Arlington)

Life Peers

  • Life Peers in the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom have been created as a non-hereditable honour at the rank of Baron since 1958. As by definition there will only be one holder of the title, they will not have a category created for their title.
  • They will be categorised directly into the landing level category Category:Life Peers of the United Kingdom and [[:Category:appropriate country, Life Peers]]
  • Both women and men can be Life Peers.
    • Women: a female Life Peer has the title "Baroness [Designation]" where designation is her surname or the Territorial Designation or both (nickname field), and her style is "The Right Honourable the Lady" (Rt Hon in the prefix box)
    • Men: a male Life Peer is has the title "Baron [Designation]" where designation is his surname or the Territorial Designation or both (Nickname field), and his style is "The Right Honourable the Lord" (Rt Hon in the prefix box)

Baronets

  • Most of the profiles of Baronets will be managed by individual members of WikiTree. As there are so many hundreds of individual Baronetcies, the Project teams will endeavour to correct the existing categories as a priority before creating any new categories.
  • The correct categorisation scheme can be found here. Please bookmark this page if you manage the profiles of Baronets.
  • If you do not have a category for your Baronet, or the existing category is misnamed, please ask for help in G2G using the tags CATEGORIZATION and the tag for the appropriate country (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland).

For the Peerage of England, see also Space:Peerage_of_England.

Previous "Aristocracy and Nobility" stream (in place until March 2022)

This is for information only - it is the situation as it was in October 2021

All Nobilities are currently placed in the top level category Aristocracy and Nobility. Of the categories in the next level down, the following are relevant to the British Isles. The categories in bold text are those which fall under the scope of this exercise. There are several duplicate categories.

Proposals:

  1. rename "British Nobility" as Nobility of the British Isles to clarify that in this context British includes Ireland
  2. remove all British sub-categories from "European Nobility", to avoid unnecessary duplication.
  3. remove English Nobility category from the top level and leave nested under Nobility of the British Isles, along with Irish, Scottish and Welsh (all currently there - see below)
  4. remove each "Peerage" category from the hierarchy: it is a uniquely British concept, related to membership of the House of Lords, and elsewhere is simply part of Nobility. Replace the "Peerage" categories with the respective Barons, Dukes, Earls, Marquesses and Viscounts. The existing categories "Peerage" and "Peerages of the British Isles" (which are practically duplicates anyway) would be redundant. Nest each type of Nobility within the Peerage individually under the relevant nation.
Proposed Top Level category structure for Aristocracy and Nobility of the British Isles version 2 27 Nov 2021

Category:England, Nobility is nested under Category:England in addition to Category:Nobility of the British Isles and Ireland. Existing sub-categories will need to be moved to the proposed new sub-categories. The categories would include all nobles with seats in England, regardless of whether their titles were held under the peerages of England, Great Britain or the United Kingdom. The sub-category for an individual title would be nested under both "England, Baronets" and "Baronetage of Great Britain", for example, as appropriate. This would place the title under both a Location stream and a Nobility stream.

Notes

  1. ↑ For the purposes of this proposal, baronets are included as the lowest rank of the nobility, even though they are not peers and are therefore not considered to be part of the aristocracy.
  2. ↑ An Additional Peerage was created during the Jacobite period in British history. This is maintained on wikitree as The Jacobite Peerage. This had no legal authority in the United Kingdom and thus Peers created under the Peerage are not regarded as Nobility. They may have been recognised as such by other nations, notably France and The Papal States.




Images: 2
Proposed Top Level category structure for Aristocracy and Nobility of the British Isles version 2 27 Nov 2021
Proposed Top Level category structure for Aristocracy and Nobility of the British Isles version 2 27 Nov 2021
United Kingdom Royalty
United Kingdom Royalty
Collaboration


Comments: 18

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Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
There is a link on this page to the category "Welsh Royal Houses" which has been sent for deletion. The link needs to be removed to allow the category deletion.

Thanks, Margaret, categorization project

posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining
Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
There is a link on this page to the category "England, Royalty" which has been sent for deletion. The link needs to be removed to allow the category deletion.

Thanks, Margaret, categorization project

posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining
Fitz-Henry-9 Jo Fitz-Henry
Thanks Margaret, will sort this out. Jo
posted by Jo Fitz-Henry
Styan-40 Martin Styan
Is it possible to have categories for nobility divided by county, for example, Yorkshire nobility, Durham nobility, Northumberland nobility and so on? I have categorized a number of aristocrats and landed gentry to the places where they had their residences and estates. I think this local aspect is really important and has been rather neglected, while their place in national structures has been emphasized. I think county categories would also be useful. I am mainly concerned with the North of England, but I have found that the nobility often had connections in widely separated places. I think people who appear in the traditional pedigrees in sources such as Burke's Peerage and Landed Gentry should be included.
posted by Martin Styan
Heathcote-126 Stephen Heathcote
This has been done in Derbyshire, so I don't see why other counties can't follow suit.
posted by Stephen Heathcote
Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
The category https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Welsh_Nobility has been renamed and the old category is set for deletion, there are two instances of links to the category on this page that need to be removed, both under the Previous Stream heading.

Many thanks, regards, Margaret

posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining
Heathcote-126 Stephen Heathcote
Thanks Margaret. I've removed the links.
posted by Stephen Heathcote
Bartlett-3702 Steve Bartlett
Being a bit thick here. No surprise there, then!

I cannot find any links… Would you mind helping me, please? Steve

posted by Steve Bartlett
Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
Hi Steve, Stephen Heathcote has removed the links, see his reply to my comment. Cheers, Margaret
posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining
Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
There is a link on this page to the category "England, Princes of Wales" which has been sent for deletion. The link needs to be removed to allow the category deletion.

Thanks, Margaret, categorization project volunteer

posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining
Heathcote-126 Stephen Heathcote
Thanks Margaret. The category has been removed.
posted by Stephen Heathcote
Durbin-702 Natalie (Durbin) Trott
Please note that any newly created or renamed categories cannot use the "&" in their titles. (Such as, listed above Category:Nobility of England & Wales. This will not work.) You will need to use the word "and" instead. Otherwise, this is really good. Thanks for taking so much time and care in the process.

Regards, Natalie

posted by Natalie (Durbin) Trott
Heathcote-126 Stephen Heathcote
Thanks: understood and changed. However, it's a pain, as the intention was to distinguish "England & Wales" as a single entity from "England" and "Wales".
posted by Stephen Heathcote
edited by Stephen Heathcote
Durbin-702 Natalie (Durbin) Trott
I get it but the character throws off the URL, so it can't be used.

Nat

posted by Natalie (Durbin) Trott
Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
Could you please delete the links to the categories Category: British Isles Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499 and Category: European Royals and Aristocrats 742-1499, the categories are set to be deleted but these links cannot be deleted by Editbot.

Thanks! Margaret, Categorization Project volunteer

posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining
Heathcote-126 Stephen Heathcote
Thanks Margaret! I've completely removed the references to the categories John Atkinson had set for deletion.
posted by Stephen Heathcote
Fitz-Henry-9 Jo Fitz-Henry
Apologies Margaret, I thought that the categories were link free when I set them for deletion. Jo
posted by Jo Fitz-Henry
Gale-2455 Margaret (Gale) Haining
Thanks Stephen and Jo, all good, those links hide under "What links here".

Cheers, Margaret

posted by Margaret (Gale) Haining

Categories: Nobility of the British Isles and Ireland | Barons Wentworth of Nettlestead