As a relatively new county team leader, I struggled to understand what is and isn’t included in county statistics and reports. Although my knowledge is far from complete, I have made some progress in recent weeks, thanks to the patient support and guidance of W Robertson, a member of the Lancashire Team, who, through working on the Dutch Team, has developed a good understanding of how Wikitree data is processed and collated.
This note presents a suggestion to the England Leadership Team that would relatively easily facilitate the inclusion of more profiles at county level. This would encourage ownership of more suggestions, unsourced profiles, unknowns etc. by County Teams.
Summary proposal
There is a significant number of profiles that are currently identified as England profiles but which are not allocated to counties. The county profile count can be improved and increased by
- a change of policy that will enable us to pick up more profiles and
- the addition of specific locations to the Location Table
The current count of county profiles
At its most basic level, a Lancashire profile is one where a person was born, married or died in Lancashire. A person who was born in Cheshire, married in Lancashire and died in Yorkshire would be counted in all three counties.
Ideally, every profile would follow Wikitree’s protocol of (Town/Village/City,) County, Country, properly spelt and punctuated. When the protocol is followed, the profile is included in the county reports. Unfortunately, a significant proportion of profiles don’t follow the protocols; consequently, these profiles are not included. They are either counted as England profiles, or are not allocated to any country.
An illustrative sample
There are 177 profiles with Ancoats (a district in Manchester) in the birth location. Only 126 (71%) are currently identified as Lancashire profiles. The included variations, which follow the protocols, are:
- Ancoats, Lancashire, England
- Ancoats, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
- Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire, England
- Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
Profiles are included if there is a street address, church name etc before any of the above variations. Examples:
- 9 Dundas St, Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire, England
- All Souls Ch, Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire, England
The following variations (which may or may not have United Kingdom at the end of the location field, or an address/church name etc at the start of the location) have also been created over time. None of these variations are included in the Lancashire profile count (number of occurrences shown in brackets):
- Ancoats, Manchester, England (24)
- Ancoats, Greater Manchester, England (11)
- Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire (3)
- Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire, UK (2)
- Ancoats, Manchester, Lancs. England (1)
- Subtotal 41 (23% of Ancoats birth locations)
- Other variations 10 (6% of Ancoats birth locations)
Proposal
It is suggested that we move to the ‘Location Table’ approach to give greater scope to include significant locations and spelling variations in our county statistics and quality reports.
A Location Table exists, maintained by Ales, that identifies some common incomplete or ‘unconventional’ locations. Other teams (including the Netherlands, Australia and some US states) have now changed the way that their profiles are identified which includes variations of locations that are listed in the table.
The current locations in the Lancashire section of the table are shown below. The list illustrates different variations of Lancashire that would immediately be picked up in the profile count.
- Lancashire, England
- Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
- Lancashire, England, UK
- Lancs, England
- Lancashire
- Lancashire England
- Lancashire, UK
- Lancashire, United Kingdom
The link to the Europe section of the table is here
There is scope to add more variations. Many more profiles could be allocated to counties if Ales created additional location names in this table. It would only be worth doing this if the numbers were significant, but locations have been identified that, if added, would have a material impact. These include:
- Adding the equivalent abbreviation as ‘Lancs. England’ for the other ‘shires’
- Adding large cities and towns, and newer counties such as ‘Manchester, England’ and “Greater Manchester, England”. Ales has produced a table showing location names that are not yet being allocated to counties, but which would be allocated if added to the Location Table. Note that the town/city must still be followed by ‘England’ (to avoid picking up e.g. Manchester, New Hampshire, United States). The table is in Appendix 3 of this note with the locations with the greatest number of instances at the top.
By adopting the same approach as the Netherlands, Australia etc., in addition to the 71% of ‘Ancoats birth’ profiles that are being included in the Lancashire statistics, a further 23% that are currently being missed would be picked up.
We would not be accepting a drop in standards. On the contrary, abbreviations such as Lancs. would be identified as suggestions, but under the new system would be flagged on the Lancashire suggestions report.
It should be noted that Lancashire would be one of the counties to benefit disproportionately from this change as Greater Manchester profiles, which are not currently counted anywhere, would be included in the ‘new’ count. Although Greater Manchester is one of the new counties, many pre-1974 profiles been created with ‘Greater Manchester’ as the county.
Appendices
Before implementing this change, some table maintenance would be required.
- Appendix 1 compares the current count of profiles by county with the count if the Locations Table was used in its current format. Negative numbers in the Difference column highlight where the table needs additions before making any change in policy.
- Appendix 2 summarises additions required, together with issues that need leadership team discussion.
- Appendix 3 shows Location names (all of which must be followed by “, England”) and the number of births, marriages and deaths that would be picked up by adding the location to the Table. Some of these locations are already covered in Appendix 2 (these must be included).
Ales has seen this note and has agreed that the proposal is deliverable. He has agreed to the principle of moving England to the Location Table count, but this needs approval from the England Leadership Team. As for adding new locations to the table, we would need to liaise with him to clarify how far down the list in appendix 3 he would be happy to go.
It should be noted that there would still be a number of profiles that would need manual intervention to add them to a county. Data Doctors reports could be produced if members wanted to correct the poorly formatted or incorrect locations on these profiles.
Steve Whitfield
Appendix 1
Current count | Count by Location Table | Difference | |
---|---|---|---|
Cheshire | 62,243 | 65,610 | 3,367 |
Merseyside | 4,014 | -4,014 | |
Durham | 90,636 | 17,633 | -73,003 |
Tyne and Wear | 1,345 | -1,345 | |
Cumberland | 32,906 | 35,354 | 2,448 |
Westmorland | 8,699 | -8,699 | |
Lancashire | 246,330 | 255,293 | 8,963 |
Northumberland | 54,371 | 56,863 | 2,492 |
Yorkshire | 284,980 | 283,045 | -1,935 |
Derbyshire | 59,123 | 61,769 | 2,646 |
Leicestershire | 41,481 | 43,467 | 1,986 |
Lincolnshire | 78,764 | 82,807 | 4,043 |
Northamptonshire | 43,000 | 44,773 | 1,773 |
Nottinghamshire | 48,074 | 49,754 | 1,680 |
Rutland | 5,601 | 0 | -5,601 |
Herefordshire | 14,161 | 15,151 | 990 |
Shropshire | 32,960 | 34,926 | 1,966 |
Staffordshire | 90,928 | 96,575 | 5,647 |
Warwickshire | 73,932 | 79,987 | 6,055 |
Worcestershire | 40,616 | 43,003 | 2,387 |
Bedfordshire | 34,965 | 36,180 | 1,215 |
Cambridgeshire | 39,722 | 41,643 | 1,921 |
Huntingdonshire | 12,138 | -12,138 | |
Essex | 99,209 | 103,941 | 4,732 |
London | 253,603 | -253,603 | |
Middlesex | 165,731 | 171,343 | 5,612 |
Hertfordshire | 47,088 | 50,490 | 3,402 |
Norfolk | 104,422 | 108,901 | 4,479 |
Suffolk | 81,292 | 86,440 | 5,148 |
Berkshire | 36,729 | 38,822 | 2,093 |
Buckinghamshire | 39,833 | 41,693 | 1,860 |
Hampshire | 94,729 | 99,592 | 4,863 |
Isle of Wight | 12,913 | 888 | -12,025 |
Kent | 182,289 | 192,633 | 10,344 |
Oxfordshire | 41,041 | 42,499 | 1,458 |
Surrey | 128,998 | 135,759 | 6,761 |
Sussex | 125,798 | 122,907 | -2,891 |
Cornwall | 155,074 | 162,072 | 6,998 |
Devon | 130,398 | 136,819 | 6,421 |
Dorset | 68,031 | 71,337 | 3,306 |
Gloucestershire | 81,265 | 84,363 | 3,098 |
Somerset | 91,327 | 96,193 | 4,866 |
Wiltshire | 67,587 | 72,690 | 5,103 |
Appendix 2
Counties missing from the location table
- Westmorland, England
- Rutland, England
- Huntingdonshire, England
Not strictly counties but new 'County' should probably be added for continuity of ownership
- London, England (and Greater London, England)
- Isle of Wight, England
Important variations to include significant locations
- Add Durham, England to County Durham (the current search is for Durham rather than County Durham)
- Add East Sussex and West Sussex to Sussex
Need discussion
- Yorkshire - in the Locations Table there are separate locations for Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, West Riding of Yorkshire that probably need grouping together under Yorkshire
- Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester (and possibly others) - should they all be separate counties with a suggestion generated if they are used for pre-1974 locations?
- Bristol - is a separate location in the table
- Middlesbrough - is a separate location in the table
- Channel Islands - is a separate (England) location in the table
- Isle of Man - is a separate (England) location in the table
- Pitcairn Islands - is a separate (England) location in the table
Appendix 3
County Locations | Instances |
---|---|
Durham | 90,366 |
Huntingdonshire | 14,490 |
West Yorkshire | 9,575 |
Westmorland | 8,738 |
Isle of Wight | 7,793 |
East Sussex | 6,971 |
Rutland | 6,477 |
West Midlands | 5,687 |
Devonshire | 4,775 |
Greater Manchester | 4,399 |
South Yorkshire | 3,825 |
Merseyside | 3,810 |
Greater London | 3,741 |
Yorkshire East Riding | 3,643 |
West Sussex | 2,878 |
Liverpool | 2,771 |
Manchester | 2,181 |
Gloucester | 2,180 |
Yorkshire West Riding | 2,164 |
Birmingham | 2,127 |
Nottingham | 1,915 |
Cambridge | 1,661 |
York | 1,643 |
Cumbria | 1,269 |
Tyne and Wear | 1,103 |
Leicester | 1,082 |
Worcester | 1,080 |
Stafford | 1,043 |
Somersetshire | 949 |
Warwick | 785 |
Lincoln | 748 |
Bedford | 719 |
East Riding of Yorkshire | 718 |
Northampton | 623 |
East Yorkshire | 572 |
Yorkshire North Riding | 519 |
Cleveland | 493 |
E Yorkshire | 492 |
Derby | 406 |
Westmoreland | 381 |
Buckingham | 301 |
Hertford | 274 |
North Riding of Yorkshire | 243 |
ERY | 192 |
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