From: tfj@apusapus.demon.co.uk (Trevor Jenkins)
Newsgroups: soc.roots
Subject: England Q: recording shire names
Date: 3 Jan 93 20:15:10 GMT
Organization: Job hunters use Parachute


In article <1992Dec30.004851.164@casbs.Stanford.EDU> kathleen@casbs.Stanford.EDU writes:

> In article <9212281757.AA07506@enterprise.vortech.com> Brian Madsen>  <bmadsen@VORTECH.COM> writes:
> >
> >Is the name "Lincolnshire" analogous to "Manitowoc County"; in other
> >words, is the "-shire" suffix expendable?  When I record place names,
> >should I:
> >
> >     a) use "Lincoln, Lincoln, England", because the "-shire" suffix
> >        is assumed, as it is for "Manitowoc County" in my earlier
> >        example?
> 
> Yes, Lincolnshire is analogous to Manitowoc County. Omitting the
> 'shire' would be OK, but might be confusing, especially if you have
> only the county name and not a city within it.

You could use the acceptable abbreviation of Lincs. when refering to the
county. This would go for other shire counties as well, eg Herts. ==
Hertfordshire. The major problem is that the government decides every so
often to move the county boundaries and indeed to do away with some
counties altogether.

> >     b) use "Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England" because the place name
> >        is really "Lincolnshire", and the folks who recorded it as
> >        "Lincoln" are simply wrong?
> 
> This is my preference to avoid confusion.  The folks who recorded it
> as Lincoln aren't wrong, though.

Hum! As an Englishman I would find it very odd to see "Lincoln, Lincoln"; I
would not find it odd though to see "Lincoln, Lincs."

> >And on a related note, the English locality divisions -- Lincoln-
> >shire, Herefordshire, and so on -- what are they called?  Counties?
> >Shires?
> 
> They are called both shires and counties in historical documents, but
> now they are counties.


Typically the "shire counties" are in the south and are typically more
prosperous and Converative (politcally that is).

> You have to be careful with early records,
> because many counties have the same name as their principal cities
> (Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, Oxford in Oxfordshire, Nottingham in
> Nottinghamshire, York in Yorkshire, Durham in County Durham, etc.),
> and documents may not be clear about whether the city or the county
> was meant.  Several counties were "counties palatine" (Lancaster,
> Chester, Ely, and Durham), meaning their lords had royal powers (in
> colonial America, Maine, Maryland, and Carolina were also
> palatinates), and they never use "shire": County Durham, County of
> Chester, etc.

>  Canterbury is the main city in Kent (now a county,
> formerly a kingdom under the Anglo-Saxons), which is also never given
> "shire" as a suffix, but Shrewsbury is the main city in Shropshire.

THE main city of Kent is Maidstone, that is Maidstone is the administrative
centre. Canterbury is now not only a city but also a district council;
including the (seaside) towns of Herne Bay and Whitstable. It is not
uncommon for the town that gives it name to the county to have nothing to
do with the adminstration of the populace in that region. 

> When you're doing research in England, you might find it helpful to
> get a list of the current counties, the old counties (for instance,
> Rutland doesn't exist anymore), and the abbreviations.  "Oxon" is the
> Latin abbreviation for Oxfordshire and also for the University of
> Oxford, "Salop" is the Latin for Shropshire.

As I intimated above changes to the counties still occur---it's our form of
Gerrymandering! Usually done with the sitting MP is likely to loose their
seat because the demographics have changed. (And it's usually a Tory
that'll be lost when it happens.) Being a "true" Englishman I don't have a
list of the changes other than the one that took place in the 1850s. If the
town/village or community that you are searching for lies anywhere near a
county boundary then it is quite possible  that the records are held in the
"wrong" place---ie in the Record Office of the county that it USED to in
rather than the county it IS in.

Researching the following families Jenkins, Birch, Furner and Smith (in
C19th Kent); also, Knowles, Ellis, Onn (in C19/C20 Cheshire).

Regards, Trevor.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trevor Jenkins                                                Re: "deemed!"
134 Frankland Rd, Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, WD3 3AU, England
email: tfj@apusapus.demon.co.uk                               radio: G6AJG  
phone: +44 (0)923 776436
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