Birmingham, Warwickshire in the 1860s

[Mallyjam]

Am interested to find out about the old boundaries of Warwickshire. I believe they were changed and Birmingham is now in what is known as the West Midlands area. Am I right? Is the West Midlands a county?

I have an ancestor who was born there and baptized at St Philips Cathedral.

[Jan1954]

First the boring bit:

The Local Government Act of 1972 came into being in 1974 and changed a lot of the boundaries from being of straightforward counties into Metropolitan Counties. Therefore, the West Midlands (metropolitan county) now consists of parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

Why anyone has to mess about with county boundaries, I have no idea. I tend to go with the old counties as, when I was at school, Bromley was in Kent and was not a London borough - the same with Croydon, which was in Surrey, rather than being a London borough. However, when I say that that Southwark is in Surrey, I am told that I should get out of the 19th century more....

[terrysfamily]

There are heaps of old maps here

http://
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/war.htm

Hope it's ok to post this link?

[Mallyjam]

Thank you both. Some beautiful maps there Terry.

It does get confusing. I'm trying to sort out a few things. Apparently the ancestor's family lived at or nearer to Edgbaston which I just found on one of those maps that Terry linked me to. The records show my ancestor was baptized in St Philips Cathedral in 1761 and I was wondering why but then found out that Birmingham didn't become a bishopric until 1905 when it became the city's cathedral. Before that it was the local parish church. I'll go look up Edgbaston now I think.

[Colin Moretti]

You might find the the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry web pages are helpful

Colin