Changing place names Old to New?

[Sarch]

What is the thinking on changing Place names on your Famliy Tree
database to reflect the new place/town name?

As you can see am looking at my new update Fam Tree program ;D ;D ;D

My thinking is that the records (baptism, marriage etc) show the old name?

I have in some instances put a GPS location in the notes on a person
Like Chycarne, home of Robert and Agnes Wallish



Sarch

[Deleted]

Hi Sarch

I think all records for BMD's should show the name

that is on the original. As is.

You could always add a note to say what the name

is now if it has changed.

Sometimes it is just the spelling that has altered.

Lamorna

[tonymitch]

Yes, keep the old place names with a note about the new name.

My grandparents according to Free BMD were married in Bootle when I understood that they had been married in Cumberland. I then discovered that Bootle is the name of a now defunct registration district of Millom. My tree shows Bootle with a note explaining that it is district of Cumberland. Anyone viewing my tree and just seeing Bootle would be led a merry dance trying to trace them in Liverpool particularly as they ended up in Chowbent which is only about 15 miles from the Liverpool Bootle.

Where's Chowbent? It's next to Chequerbent and doesn't appear on any map of the UK. They changed its name to Atherton.....So another note needed.

[myghaelangof]

Hi Tony, Lamorna and Sarch,

Crikey, you mean Bootle isnt Merseyside! I've got a Jane REYNOLDS married St Just in 1833 to James SHAKERLEY, and she died in Bootle Workhouse. I've assumed this is Merseyside. I'd better go back and check! She was living on Nelson Street, Millom Cumberland in 1881

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Just shows we have to be careful with place names, Especially ones like St. Ives (Cornwall and Cambs) and St.Ive (Cornwall)

Mike

[tonymitch]

Extracted from'Images of Cumbria - Bootle Town and Parish' (www.stevebulman.f9.co.uk).....

Bootle Union is divided into two districts, viz. Bootle district and Muncaster district, the former comprising Bootle, Corney, Millom, Ulpha, Whicham, and Whitbeck. Mrs. Wilson is matron of the Bootle Workhouse, and Matthew Tyson is master of Millom Workhouse, the former of which is only capable of containing about thirty, and the latter about forty paupers. The population of the Union in 1841, was 5516.

Bootle Merseyside is really a suburb or district of Liverpool and is better known than the Cumberland one. It really threw me at first. Grandma and Grandad were married in Liverpool?? What the hell were they doing there when the rest of the family were in Millom???

[Deleted]

Hi Mike

You have to be very careful with place names as these can change from one census to the other.
Different spellings abound.
Always best to look at the original if you can.

Also peoples names change as well, it seems that they can be a completely different person at times.

The original is best as I'm sure you know ;D

Lamorna

[Cornish Terrier]

I think you should always go with the original .... and that goes for the dates as well!!

Don't muck around with converting old to new style - simply enter what was written in the register.

You can add 'Countries' to that list also (e.g. Ceylon or Sri Lanka) and then you have the problem of Russia with St Petersburg/Petrograd and all those fun changes.

Where I have the big problem is with the way the surname is recorded.

With somewhere between 23 and 28 written variations of Trewhella it gets to be a problem especially when one person can be recorded four, five or more different ways. (Baptism, Marriage, Death, Burial, Passenger List and so on.)

But this problem is compounded further when two brothers ultimately decide to spell the name differently.

But returning to the original question ..................

Having read the question again and having now taken more notice of the accompanying comments I think we have all glossed over one particular point!

You are now talking places like CHYCARNE so you are at a deeper level of abode than simply the city, town or village which are all likely to appear on a reasonable map.

Chycarne is more a hamlet or farm and so would probably appear only on the larger scale maps like the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey.

And unless you add it yourself it is highly unlikely that it would appear in the Gazetteer of your genealogy program.

(I don't remember the exact location off the top of my head ...)
So in my case I would enter it as Chycarne, St Buryan for example.

CT

[londoner]

And now, in their wisdom, Cornwall Council are erecting b-lingual roadsigns - so you can chose whether to use Cornish or English! ;D

[Cornish Terrier]

'ang on! 'ang on! - which one is Arfur and which one is Marfa?

Was it not only in the last couple of weeks that someone told us here that the Cornish Language had been decleared DED .... Again!

Or are there elections on the near horizon and visions of a few votes from the Cornish-speakers-that-can't-exist-because-their-language-is-dead? ;D

Reminds me of a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail -

'but I'm not dead yet!' (Conk!)

'Bring out yer dead!'

[myghaelangof]

CT I used to have dead parrot tie, one of those silly xmas presents lol!
And weirdly enough my next door neighbour used to be Marfa, but when she introduced herself I thought she said Arfur, and I called her Arfur for ages!

Londoner, I'll follow the Cornish signs - always take my passport though so I can get back across the Tamar if i really have to.

Tony, yes I was totally thrown by Bootle as well, but as James wasnt a direct line I didnt pursue it. Makes sense now as they lived in Millom. Thank you for pointing that one out.

Which brings us to names. Haha Lamorna, just what I have been doing this week is looking at the changing name syndrome around the late 1500's early 1600's and it does get very confusing. For example Thomas BUSVARGUS (=1616) was the son of John LETHAN!

On the place name syndrome we have to remember how names are recycled or evolve, for example Bostrase in St Just, and Bostrase in St Hilary. Bostrase being the Cornish wording todescribe the land they sit on. Bit like Bootle except prettier. I think the key to recording these places, and changing names, is down to individual choice. I try to standardise all the spellings, but will put notes under individuals of the spelling that occurs on documents. Sometimes, when working from the net or transcriptions you'll find 2 spellings - one as it appears - and another as the transcriber thinks it should be. These can be useful to see how the names evolve, especially if you have a range of documents.

If we dont standardise how are we ever going to find anything in the search index for thousands of individuals?

Regards Mike, sat back at home with yet another driving test cancelled due to the ice!