England Locating Places (National Institute)

Description of Land
One of the hallmarks of good researchers is their diligence in finding out as much as possible about the place in which their ancestor lived. The researcher needs to know a lot more about a place than just its name and county. It is therefore important to have access to a range of gazetteers and maps of different time periods and different types, in order to be able to utilize those appropriate for their current research problem.

Topography
Land can be described according to its topography, that is the physical features such as elevation, type of land and waterways, all of importance to your ancestor in his daily life. The major jurisdictional divisions in England and Wales exerted various controls over his life as well and these were of two kinds: Civil (Counties and Civil Parishes) and Ecclesiastical (Dioceses and Ecclesiastical Parishes).

The 40 counties present before the 1974 re-organization are normally used for genealogical purposes. The term ancient parishes refers to the over 11,000 ecclesiastical ones present in 1832 (see Cecil R. Humphery-Smith’s The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers), before the Victorian population explosion, the development of the railways and large scale movement to the cities.

Divisions and Districts
The county administration was based on the divisions called hundreds or wapentakes (eastern counties settled by Vikings) or wards (north west). Some counties have intermediate-size groupings of hundreds called divisions (Hampshire, Lincolnshire), lathes (Kent), rapes (Sussex), or ridings (Yorkshire). There are also somewhat independent groupings called liberties (some towns), sokes (in the Danelaw), and shires (in the northern counties). [It should be noted that nowadays the term shire means a whole county].

Many of the Poor Law Districts and the later Registration Districts bear the names of the old hundreds. The parishes in each hundred in England can be found in Samuel Lewis (A Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831) and Cecil R. Humphery-Smith (The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers, 1995), and for Wales in Rowlands and Rowlands (The Surnames of Wales for Family Historians and Others, 1996). There are also lists under GENUKI online. It is necessary to know in which hundred a parish lies in order to access many older civil records.

Gazetteers
It is very wise to become familiar with the purposes and contents of several gazetteers for your country and area. You will also need to know whether the place was a parish, and if it wasn’t, then what parish it was in. Following this find what civil Poor Law Union (and hence Registration District) it was in, and what bishop’s Diocese it came under.

The type, availability and location of records will also be influenced by the type of parish. Was it an ordinary parish or was it a peculiar or liberty? Some people lived outside of a parish in an extra-parochial area which has important implications for the researcher. This kind of information will be provided in an appropriate gazetteer.

Take particular note if a place is at the edge of one jurisdiction, such as a county or diocese, as families tended to ignore such lines drawn on maps and may have popped over the boundary for various events in their lives.

Beware of places bearing the same name existing in different (or even the same) counties. Recognize that when far from their place of origin it was common to give the name of the closest town or city, rather that the village name, as a place of birth. Easily available and recommended geographical aids for different time periods include:


 * Bartholomew’s Gazetteer of the British Isles. Statistical and Topographical. Several editions e.g. 9th (1952) on . A gazetteer of place names throughout the British Isles. It is excellent for locating smaller places, but not for details on each place. Commonly referred to as Bart’s.


 * The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales by John Wilson (1879) on (29.) The spellings and jurisdictions in this comprehensive gazetteer are the ones used in the Family History Library Catalogue. It gives institutional and political information for each county, town and village and indicates whether the place is a parish and, if not, what parish it is in.


 * A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1831) on -34 (16.) Use this comprehensive gazetteer for earlier work, historical background on each parish, and descriptions of the schools, churches and other buildings in the area. Excellent for determining the ecclesiastical jurisdictions needed for work on parish registers, marriage licences and probate. Now also available on CD from archive CD Books.


 * A Genealogical Gazetteer of England by Frank Smith is based on Lewis’s work above, but is not as complete, although it does give the starting date for parish registers. There are rather too many errors, and it does not help at all with post-1812 parishes. Steel has a similar opinion in his review. I prefer a combination of one of the old gazetteers described above and The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers (Humphery-Smith).


 * A Topographical Dictionary of Wales by Samuel Lewis (1833) on (10.) A companion volume to that on England mentioned above.


 * A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales by James Bell (1834), the maps from this are used in Phillimore’s Atlas (Humphery-Smith)


 * Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units: Medieval and Modern by Melville Richards (1969) on (4.) Known familiarly as WATU, this publication gives locations of even the smallest places in Wales, and indicates the parish to which they belong.


 * Parishes and Registration Districts in England and Wales by Penelope Christensen (2000) lists over 18,000 parishes and places and indicates the Poor Law Union and Registration District to which they belonged at various times. Invaluable for civil registration, census and poor law research.


 * The CD Index of Place Names from the Office of National Statistics gives local government jurisdictions, health authorities and registration districts as well as grid references and 1991 census population figures for 70,000 places in England and Wales.

The chart below compares the kinds of information found in different gazetteers. Note that Smith, although published in 1987, extracted information from Samuel Lewis’ A Topographical Dictionary of England (1831). It is quite apparent that one needs to consult a range of gazetteers for different information.

Chart: Comparison of Information found in four Gazetteers

Special Purpose Gazetteers
There are many other gazetteers available for special purposes; a selection to whet your appetite includes:


 * Churches in Retirement: A Gazetteer by the Redundant Churches Fund, with photos and a short description of 250 English redundant churches in 1989


 * Domesday Gazetteer by Darby and Versey, with old and modern place names keyed to maps.


 * A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters 1500-1900 by Jones, Porter and Turner giving statistics on about 600 major fires, explaining the lack of buildings and documents prior to that date.


 * Historical Gazetteer of London before the Great Fire by Keene and Harding reconstructs the history and topography of buildings in the City of London from the 12th century until 1666, with maps.


 * A Gazetteer of Streets, Roads and Place Names in Shropshire by Foxall which also includes many field names as well.


 * A Gazetteer of Liverpool Breweries by Barge contains maps, photos, alphabetical list of brewers and their businesses, and of streets with licencees, names and dates.


 * Brickmaking, a History and Gazetteer by Cox contains details of Bedfordshire brickworks.


 * Parish Locator Program is useful for location, distances between parishes and jurisdictions.


 * Webb’s Index of Country Houses.


 * Montgomery-Massingberd’s series on country houses is very detailed and includes much family history of the owners.


 * A gazetteer of 50,000 UK places with links to modern and older maps, plus local history and genealogical messages and links.


 * Dennis R. Mills’ Rural Community History from Trade Directories has an interesting chapter comparing gazetteers and directories.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Land and Property Records including Manorial Documents and Maps offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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