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Archiver > TMG > 2000-02 > 0950324202


From: "Hugh Wilding" <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: Place Names...Yet Again
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 02:56:42 -0000


Bud Dorr wrote:


> The more I think about this (a big mistake, I'm afraid!)

Just remember, you said it <g>.

> I have several hundred ancestors born in the State of Maine. Maine became
a
> state in 1820; before then it was part of Massachusetts. Do I change
everything
> prior to 1820 to Massachusetts? It just sounds silly, yet I realize that
most
> records for those locations before 1820 are stored in Massachusetts. There
are
> 49 other states. What have more experienced users done?

I think that the game plan is always to give it as it was stated to be or,
failing a statement, as you know it to have been at the time. The Lat.Long
field can help you in this respect by providing a known constant.

> Do all locations before 1781 (when the US gained its independence from
Great
> Britain - Yorktown) state the country as Great Britain? Or was it United
Kingdom
> back then?

An interesting one - I must find out. There have been 3 Acts of Union but
the first, with Wales (1535) did not result in the "United Kingdom" because
Wales was *only* a Principality, never a Kingdom. Why we waited 250 years
until Henry VIII when the military conquest of Wales took place under Edward
I, I don't know.

I have a feeling that the term "United Kingdom" came into use after the Act
of Union with Scotland (1710) rather than after that with Ireland (1801).
Scotland was an established kingdom with centrtalised authority etc. whereas
things were a little more *flexible* in Ireland. Certainly the "Union
Jack", the amalgamation of the Cross of St George with that of St Andrew,
came into use during the C18 because there is plenty of pictorial evidence
to support this - recognisable as similar to today's flag but minus the
diagonal red lines (Cross of St Patrick).

> What happens when another county is carved from a pre-existing one?

Up until the moment of creation, the pre-exisitng one is the one to give
e.g. pre-1918 Budapest, Prague and Vienna will be cities in Austria-Hungary
whereas post-1918, these will be Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria.

> It seems that the easiest course would be (as Lee has stated before, I
think) to
> assiduously determine what the political structure was at the time and use
those
> place names. At least there is an iron-clad rule that is understandable.
Thus
> everything in America prior to 1781 would take place in Great Britain. So
what
> was our political name before then, The Colonies? Following this rule will
> result in some very unexpected designations, I'm afraid.

This is going way back into the dusty corners, but as I remember historical
maps from my schooldays, we referred to "British North America" (as distinct
from "French North America", "Spanish North America", etc.). It was all
pretty chaotic with some areas reasonably well defined under trading
charters etc. but others not so - the "first" British Empire was not so much
driven by royal territorial aggrandisement as by private commercial
opportunity. One of the outcomes of the loss of the North American colonies
was a re-evaluation by the British Parliament of its role vis-a-vis colonies
generally and there were political developments in the late 1780s to
safeguard national interests in Canada and India over and above those of the
original trading companies. (The fact that the French were making seductive
noises about "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" at this time probably had a lot
to do with it as well!).

By the time we get to the "second" British Empire of the C19, matters are
much better defined with the administrators and bureaucrats rather closer to
the planting of the flag than previously e.g. look how we British were able
to show, almost to the minute, when it was that the Falklands were first
claimed. Ah, the benefits of writing it all down for future generations
<G>.

Hugh Wilding
Berkshire, England
<>

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