Scarborough, Bts

[suttontrust]

I've found a lot of people I've been looking for in Scarborough on the IGI, but something puzzles me.  Quite a few of them give the place as "Scarborough, Bts., Yorkshire".  What does the Bts mean?

[Sisterjane]

By the see..........just a thought 

Joe

[Sisterjane]

sorry of course i meant Sea

Joe

['Tricia]

Bishop's Transcripts.

Don't ask me anymore - that's all I know

Tricia

[sisfidy58]

Hi! 

Newbie here, but not to Genealogy.  I've been working on my North Riding ancestors, and now understand why there are multiple place names.  Firstly, York is the ONLY English county that is divided into "Ridings" because it is the largest county by far.  Divisions (largest to smallest) are County, (Riding, if included), Wapentake, Parish (Civil parish, not religious parish.) and then Town.  SOMETIMES if the Wapentake and town are the same (Pickering, for example) it may read Pickering, Pickering, Pickering-Lythe, (sometimes includes North Riding), York.  The Town and Parish are the same, and the Wapentake is Pickering-Lythe, the county being York.  More modern listings are less likely to include the Riding, and will read "York" rather than "Yorkshire".

That doesn't do anything towards explaining what Bts. stands for, but if I figure it out, I'll post here.

Sisfidy58

[sisfidy58]

Hi -- Newbie again.

  I forgot to include Township in the Civil Divisions!!  The Civil Divisions of English Counties were revised several times -- my guess is that it was done as population increased, and the Civil authorities needed more specific ways of locating/taxing people.

So Scarborough would be broken down by York County (or "Yorkshire"), Pickering-Lythe "Liberty" (which I take to be the same thing as "Pickering-Lythe Wapentake"), Scarborough Parish, Scarborough Burough, and Scarborough or Falsgrave Township (there are 2 townships in Scarborough Parish).  So, as genealogists, if your ancestor lived in Scarborough, they MAY be (smallest to largest) in Falsgrave Twp, Scarborough (Parish), Pickering-Lythe, York, OR Scarborough Twp, Scarborough (Parish), Pickering-Lythe, York, OR (if they actually live in the Borough (Town) of Scarborough, it may be Scarborough (Borough/Town), Scarborough (Parish), Pickering-Lythe, York.  No wonder that we Americans get confused. Sorry for the confusion over my omission!  Sisfidy58

[Spelk]

Since the source of Bts (or was it BTS) was the IGI maybe the meaning is not to do with the place but that the person had been baptised into the church of LDS.
This “baptism” is recent and has nothing to do with the actual religious belief of the person.

[KGarrad]

Wapentake, from Old Norse vápnatak, an administrative division of the English counties of York, Lincoln, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, and Rutland, first clearly referred to in 962/963 and corresponding to the “hundred” in other parts of England. The term wapentake is of Scandinavian origin and meant the taking of weapons; it later signified the clash of arms by which the people assembled in a local court expressed assent. Danish influence was strong in those English counties where wapentakes existed.

The word Riding is derived from a Danish word 'thridding', meaning a third. The invading Danes called representatives from each Thridding to a thing, or parliament and established the Ridings System.

There is a list of parishes in the wapentake of Pickering-Lythe here:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/north/vol2/pp418-420

The wapentake of Dic seems to have been divided into two portions corresponding for the most part with the later east and west wards of the forest of Pickering, wards which in their turn appear to correspond with the respective sokes of the royal 'manors' of Falsgrave and Pickering. In 1086 part of the soke of the 'manor' of Falsgrave lay in Filey and Gristhorpe; this was, perhaps, in what was afterwards Lebberston and Gristhorpe, for both these townships of Filey parish have remained in this wapentake, while Filey itself as early as 1284–5 (fn. 7) was in the East Riding and wapentake of Dickering. Falsgrave probably included Scarborough in 1086, and the town and castle of Scarborough were 'within the boundes of Pickeringlith but freed from the same by charter.'