The Use of Maps for Family Historians: Borders and Boundaries

When researching any family or embarking on a local history project it is important to establish the relevant boundaries and jurisdictions. On the walls of my study I have three beautifully framed maps of my ancestral counties of Leicestershire, Lancashire and Northamptonshire. If I didn't know better I could almost think that they were islands. Quite rightly the focus of any local archive centre is on 'their area' which may well be very different to what our forebears considered to be 'their area'. Some of my ancestors came from Kirkby Lonsdale, now part of Cumbria. Up to 1974 Kirkby Lonsdale was in Westmorland, though interestingly its railway station which was outside the town was in Lancashire! So searching for records for my ancestors has to be done carefully. They were 'fell mongers', that is they dealt in sheepskins, so 'their area' was probably the surrounding hill country. They were living in Westmorland; many records for Westmorland are now held at Cumbria Archives Kendal branch, and this area is in the Archdeaconry of Richmond, the Diocese of Chester and the Province of York! One of my ancestors married a girl from Over Kellet, which is just under ten miles away but in Lancashire, the probate court is still Richmond, but it is now in the Diocese of Manchester. She returned to Over Kellet to have her first two babies and they were baptised there, though later babies she had in Kirkby Lonsdale. So researching this family has proved to be a challenge even though they lived and worked for generations within a very small area, which unfortunately for me included three counties (some strayed east a few miles into the West Riding of Yorkshire), two diocese and various poor law unions.

Being a 'cartophile' (a lover of maps), I always look carefully at the little boxes around maps which describe the 'characteristics and symbols for boundaries'. They are essential reading. On the Wavertree & Broadgreen 1905 map it clearly shows that the road I was interested in was in 'Old Swan Ward' and not 'Wavertree Ward' as I had presumed. As I was researching a property I wanted to look at the electoral registers which are organised by ward. In Leicester the boundary between Wycliffe and Charnwood Wards runs down the middle of Queen Street (Leicester NE 1913 map). Knowing exactly where the boundary goes can save a researcher hours of work and stop unnecessary errors being made. These maps also show the poor law unions, and again knowing which poor law union a family lived in can save hours of work. These information boxes also show that different fonts were used to describe parishes, districts and wards.

These O.S. maps also show the choices our ancestors had. They had no choice over poor law union or parliamentary ward but they could choose which church they attended. So looking at a map may show that a family lived in a certain parish but that their house was in fact much nearer to another church or chapel. In many rural areas parishes are huge. Aikton in Cumbria is over five miles long, if you lived in the far north of the parish it was half a mile to Kirkbride church and three miles to Aikton Church. Further south in Cumbria I first visited Mosser Chapel on a glorious spring afternoon and enjoyed the walk up through the fields and I happily photographed the tiny lamb which had managed to get into the graveyard, before helping it back to its mum in the adjoining field. I doubt whether I would have been so joyful on a cold February morning, wearing long skirts, tramping up the hill in the mud, clutching a newborn baby! A more comfortable walk or cart ride to Dean would have been my choice.

So overall my advice would be to study the fine detail of maps and at the same time look at the bigger picture! I keep an old road atlas, and when I have a new research project I draw concentric circles around the place I am starting with, at 3, 6 and 9 miles. I check the county boundaries, remembering the wholesale changes that were made in 1974 which saw the eradication of some counties. I then know which of the earlier O.S. maps I need. I then use them to identify other boundaries as well as looking at the overall area, thinking "If I'd lived there in 1880 where would I have gone to church, gone to work, etc?" With all that information I can then investigate where the relevant records should be.