Roger Fern wrote:
> I have to index an archaeological journal. When putting place-names in I
> usually add the "county". I always use the historic/traditional counties.
> The simplest reason is that they are still very familiar to people....
> I won't go on: my basic point is that a lot of people have a good use for
a
> set of area-names (counties) which are (1) familiar and (2) *** stable
***.
Yes, absolutely. Historians except for very modern times should use the
customary counties for the same reason--also to avoid being anachronistic.
I see that the placename finder (160,000 names) at Popular Archaelogy
(http://www.digital-documents.co.uk/) seems to use the pre-1995
boundaries--ie, still uses Humberside, Cleveland, and other admin units that
existed for about 20 years. (Sic transit...) However, the search engine is
intelligent (unlike the dumb ones at OS, Assn of British Counties, and
Old-maps.co.uk), allowing searches by literal name, stem, terminal
placename, element, and sterminal (front and end letters with wildcard in
the middle).
Al Magary
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