How do you record a birth when the county boundary has been "reorganised"?

[carol8353]

When I send stuff to my daughters (still in Portishead!) I always put North Somerset

I do exactly the same to friends and family still living in Harrow,it was (and always will be for me) in Middlesex. The post code is HA,so not NW London as so many people wish to label it now!

Carol

[barryd]

As far as I am concerned British West Hartlepool is and always has been in County Durham. There is a risk that the Thought Police may arrest me at midnight and cart me away but that's the chance I must take.

Internationally an example is

German South West Africa
South West Africa
Namibia.

The answer to the question is a BMD record is deemed be the name which a place was officially called when the event took place. In other words when the birth, marriage or death took place.

[JohninSussex]

I occasionally encounter online forms that insist on entering a county for a UK address.  This is wrong, as many years ago counties ceased to be part of a postal address anywhere in the UK.  And even in the days when a county was required, it was always omitted in a case like "Hertford, Hertfordshire", or for Bristol and London, or other major cities.  So if I could be bothered I would complain to these companies every time I encounter one of those forms.  Royal Mail is to blame for not caring enough about correctness of addresses these days.

Back to the actual question, everyone should make their own choices as to how to record things.  But I'm sure the most usual would be to record the place with the county etc as it was at the time of the event being recorded; but probably use  the current spelling of the names not the spelling used in the record.  If you want you can always add a note such as "Widnes, Lancashire (now Cheshire)" or "Danzig, Prussia (now Gdańsk, Poland)".

[Andrew Tarr]

I would enter the county name as it was at the time of the birth/marriage/death.

I second that.  It's the same as dealing with surname changes on marriage - in my system each person's identity remains the one recorded at birth.  Some surnames took several forms anyway.

I live within a few miles of Widnes on the Cheshire side, and have always been irked by the rather arbitrary changes made by 'authority'.  But some researchers may have met a similar Victorian problem: Camberley (Surrey?) was originally Cambridge Town and was altered to reduce postal confusion.  And Middlesex no longer exists except as a postal address.

[tillypeg]

On a similar note, when inputting on Ancestry trees, I always amend Durham (the county of) to read Co Durham.  Durham, Durham, England looks so silly.

[susieroe]

Rutland became part of Leicestershire in 1974. People were furious about it. Years later, working in Leicester, I was taking down the address of a customer for an order. She gave it, Oakham and sort of mumbled 'Leicester'. To which I loudly said 'Oakham, RUTLAND' as I wrote it down. You should have seen their pleased faces! There was a long-running campaign to reverse the decision and in 1997 Rutland regained it's proud heritage.

[coombs]

I always add the historic county such as "Hopton On Sea, Suffolk" or "Appleton with Eaton, Berkshire". Hopton is now Norfolk and Appleton now Oxfordshire.

[Chilternbirder]

I occasionally encounter online forms that insist on entering a county for a UK address. 

I have come across sites that require that you enter a US state regardless of country.

I have one ancestor with four different locations despite never moving house. Different life events were recorded by parish, local authority or registration district all of which changed during her lifetime as what used to be called Metropolitan Essex was built up.

[coombs]

I always add the historic county such as "Hopton On Sea, Suffolk" or "Appleton with Eaton, Berkshire". Hopton is now Norfolk and Appleton now Oxfordshire.

Quoting my own message, I tell a bit of a lie, as I add pre 1889 areas of London such as Pancras, Westminster, Shoreditch, Holborn etc as London and not Middlesex, or Lambeth as London and not Surrey. London was not an official county until 1889, with just the square mile as London City. The conurbation pre 1889 (outside the city) was considered London.