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England Counties Working Party Phase 2 - Adding more Places to Location Table -

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Progress to Date
24 Oct 2022

Last week, we saw an increase of about 174,000 profiles in our county statistics. All counties saw an increase in numbers with the exception of Merseyside. (Several pre-1974 Merseyside profiles were amended to Lancashire or Cheshire in the week before the switch, so it was good to see this particular reduction).

My ‘rough and ready’ analysis of last week’s numbers suggests that the underlying profile total (i.e. counting on a like-for-like basis) would have increased the England counties total by about 11,000. This means that about 163,000 new profiles were identified and allocated to counties by the switch, an increase of about 4%.

We now have more visibility regarding the new county of England - Unknown Region. As I mentioned in an earlier note, there are about 330,000 profiles in this ‘county’. About 255,000 of these simply have ‘England’ (or a recognised variation of it) in the location field. The other 75,000 have a place name which ends with “, England” or one of the acceptable variations of “, England, United Kingdom”.

Phase 2

I have been looking at the database of the 75,000 profiles to establish what would give us the biggest gains in Phase 2. The new method of identifying profiles is more flexible than the old system, but there are criteria of which we need to be mindful when we submit our next list of requested additions to the Locations Table. The system reads the location field from the right, identifying strings of words rather than just the last word in the string. Commas are an important element in the identification process, as they define the start and end of a string.

As an example, “Brixton, London, England” would be identified as a London profile (as the term 'London, England' is in the table); however, “Brixton, South London, England” would not be recognised as ‘South London’ is not in the table. This presents particular challenges for Yorkshire; partly due to the existence of the Ridings, locations have been input in a variety of ways.

The table below shows the strings that appear before “, England” in the birth location of Unknown Region profiles. The terms are a mix of towns, cities, abbreviations and frequently used ways of referring to a county. They might appear simply as the place followed by England, or after a comma in a longer location. (e.g. “Liverpool, England” or “Everton, Liverpool, England”).

There are a number of locations that I have taken out of the list as they are not England profiles. For example, there are over 250 instances of "Channel Islands, England" and over 200 "Isle of Man, England" that should not appear on our reports. We could fix these manually but I suggest we ask Ales to allocate them out to their respective 'countries' via the location field. The Wales team have been fixing "Wales, England" and others; I will notify the Scotland Team of some Scottish locations that appear on our lists.

The locations with the highest numbers of profiles are at the top of the list. The list has been collated using birth locations only; the total will be higher than these numbers as births and marriages will also be identified by the new places that are added to the Location Table.

We need to submit the table to Ales with a county to which the place would be allocated. I have added a suggested county team to each place where at least 100 profiles have been identified. I have continued the table to places with at least 50 profiles so people can see which places are ‘missing out’.

Place names may appear twice on the list. 'Leicester, England' is in 12th place; but appears again in 80th position as there are 82 instances where people have input "Leicester., England" (with a full stop after the word Leicester).

I would propose sending the cleaned-up list below to Ales for consideration. He has so far given no indication of what he might be able to add, and there will be a level at which he wants us to fix poorly-formatted locations manually to allocate them to a county.

The table is sortable. It would be helpful for Working Party members to look at their counties and check that the places have been correctly allocated. Cumbria and Avon straddle historical counties; I have allocated them to the county which seems to have the majority of the profiles.

RankLocation NameCountyProfilesCumulative
1DevonshireDevon43114311
2Yorkshire East RidingYorkshire25996910
3GloucesterGloucestershire19668876
4YorkYorkshire171410590
5LiverpoolLancashire162112211
6NottinghamNottinghamshire138713598
7ManchesterLancashire132514923
8CambridgeCambridgeshire132316246
9BirminghamWarwickshire130417550
10SomersetshireSomerset129918849
11LincolnLincolnshire118420033
12LeicesterLeicestershire97921012
13CumbriaCumberland96821980
14WorcesterWorcestershire93222912
15StaffordStaffordshire90323815
16East Riding of YorkshireYorkshire83524650
17WarwickWarwickshire76025410
18NorthamptonNorthamptonshire75226162
19Yorkshire West RidingYorkshire71026872
20BedfordBedfordshire68027552
21Yorkshire (West Riding)Yorkshire61128163
22East YorkshireYorkshire48128644
23Newcastle Upon TyneNorthumberland47929123
24WestmorelandWestmorland46929592
25DerbyDerbyshire45730049
26LancasterLancashire42130470
27HerefordHerefordshire41730887
28BuckinghamBuckinghamshire37931266
29HertfordHertfordshire36831634
30North Riding of YorkshireYorkshire36632000
31DorsetshireDorset34732347
32Borough of CalderdaleYorkshire34032687
33OxfordOxfordshire27832965
34PeterboroughNorthamptonshire26433229
35HuntingdonHuntingdonshire26233491
36WolverhamptonStaffordshire24433735
37LeedsYorkshire24333978
38E.YorkshireYorkshire23534213
39SheffieldYorkshire22534438
40StaffsStaffordshire22434662
41Yorkshire North RidingYorkshire22034882
42NorwichNorfolk20435086
43SouthamptonHampshire19135277
44ERYYorkshire18835465
45Yorkshire (North Riding)Yorkshire18835653
46E. YorkshireYorkshire18735840
47WestminsterLondon18136021
48PlymouthDevon17836199
49SunderlandDurham17536374
50YorksYorkshire17236546
51ChesterCheshire17136717
52CoventryWarwickshire15736874
53Kent CountyKent13937013
54PortsmouthHampshire13937152
55AvonGloucestershire13137283
56BathSomerset13037413
57Middlesex CountyMiddlesex12937542
58BradfordYorkshire12837670
59NewcastleNorthumberland12737797
60Cambs.Cambridgeshire12337920
61HertsHertfordshire12338043
62HullYorkshire12338166
63Suffolk CountySuffolk11138277
64North Riding YorkshireYorkshire11038387
65ClevelandYorkshire10438491
66South LondonLondon10138592
67Wessex9938691
68Norfolkshire9838789
69Stockport9738886
70Southwark9338979
71Bucks9139070
72Worchester9039160
73Greenwich8939249
74Gloustershire8839337
75Yorkshire (East Riding)8839425
76East London8639511
77Essex County8639597
78Newcastle on Tyne8639683
79Norfolk County8539768
80Leicester.8239850
81Salford7839928
82Brighton7740005
83Great Bardsfield7740082
84Central London7540157
85Devonshire.7540232
86West Riding7440306
87Cambs7240378
88Worcester.7240450
89Hants7140521
90Yorkshire East7140592
91Somerset County7040662
92Woolwich7040732
93Islington6940801
94Lambeth6840869
95Birmingham.6740936
96Dover6541001
97Exeter6441065
98West Riding Yorkshire6441129
99East Riding Yorkshire6241191
100Reading6241253
101Northumbria6141314
102West London6041374
103Salop5941433
104Durham County5841491
105South Shields5841549
106Carlisle5741606
107Middx5741663
108Hackney5641719
109N.Yorkshire5641775
110County Kent5341828
111County Yorkshire5341881
112Clerkenwell5141932
113Marylebone5141983
114Yorkshire County5142034
115Colerne5042084
116Dudley5042134




Collaboration


Comments: 1

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I would add locations with 1000+ instaneces to the table.

Althou there is a problem in case the Location Name is actually a place. By just adding to the region group, I would loose precision in geolocating a profile. For instance Liverpool, England is only part of Lancashire, but it would hide, that the place is Liverpool.

Those locations would need to be done like a separate location for a place. Like it is done for England, Gloucestershire, Bristol in https://wikitree.sdms.si/function/WTShowTable/Table.htm?table=Countries&filter=ENG

For "Channel Islands, England" and "Isle of Man, England" I would rather see that you remove England from the locations, since it shouldn't be there.

posted by Aleš Trtnik