May I have an answer please

[sharinj]

I am confused. Is Nottingham a town within Nottinghamshire or is Nottingham a town in the Midlands. I think the "shire" part is confusing. Thank you

[Alan Welsford]

Virtually the same thing has been discussed in a thread over the last few days.

Nottingham is an English town.

Nottinghamshire is an English county, often abbreviated Notts, but which shouldn't really be abbreviated to Nottingham, (although that's what the Latter Day Saints often do on their website).

Nottingham the town lies within Nottinghamshire the county.

So a full address there might be

1 Smith Street, Nottingham, Notts.

Whether you class it as "the midlands" is more arguable, and the exact definition of what constitutes "the midlands" will often vary in people's minds depend upon where they are from.

People who live further north in the UK are often keen to point out that what is generally known as "the midlands" in reality lies well to the south of England. (But now I'm just confusing you).

There are many examples similar to Nottingham - Nottinghamshire

Hertford - Hertfordshire
Buckingham - Buckinghamshire
Hereford - Herefordshire
Worcester - Worcestershire
etc.

Alan

[Peter_uk_can]

Hi Sharinj

Nottingham is a town, (it is refered to as a city) within the county of Nottinghamshire.

Just like you have state capitals, the UK has county towns or cities, some reflect the name of the county others don't.


The UK is divided up into shires, also known as counties. Some names end in "shire" others don't. So any name ending in "shire" would be a county and not a town or city.

County names have changed over the years and boundaries have moved. It can be slightly confusing for us who live or have lived there.

Example. Today the county of Devon is refered to as simply Devon, but certain things that come from Devon such as cows, may be refered to as Devonshire Cows, or a person may be described as Devonshire born.

I recently came across an older doucument that was entitiled "**** within Devonshire County"

For further information about place names, counties and some valuable information about their origins and locations, try the "Genuki" sites.
Google will find it for you and a worthwhile addition to your favorites.


Originally from Barnsley in the county of Yorkshire. Which when I was born was divided into 3 ridings of which I lived in the West one. The riding boundaries were abolished and the county of Yorkshire was divided into three further shires. East Yorkshire - West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.

Because I was in the West riding I became part of South Yorkshire. Now how difficult is all that to understand.

(Someone may mention Humberside, but that is a different story ;)

I trust in all this I also managed to answer your question.


Peter

[SBSFamilyhistory]

Hi Sharinj

Nottingham is a town, (it is refered to as a city) within the county of Nottinghamshire.

Just like you have state capitals, the UK has county towns or cities, some reflect the name of the county others don't.


The UK is divided up into shires, also known as counties. Some names end in "shire" others don't. So any name ending in "shire" would be a county and not a town or city.

County names have changed over the years and boundaries have moved. It can be slightly confusing for us who live or have lived there.

Example. Today the county of Devon is refered to as simply Devon, but certain things that come from Devon such as cows, may be refered to as Devonshire Cows, or a person may be described as Devonshire born.

I recently came across an older doucument that was entitiled "**** within Devonshire County"

For further information about place names, counties and some valuable information about their origins and locations, try the "Genuki" sites.
Google will find it for you and a worthwhile addition to your favorites.


Originally from Barnsley in the county of Yorkshire. Which when I was born was divided into 3 ridings of which I lived in the West one. The riding boundaries were abolished and the county of Yorkshire was divided into three further shires. East Yorkshire - West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.

Because I was in the West riding I became part of South Yorkshire. Now how difficult is all that to understand.

(Someone may mention Humberside, but that is a different story ;)

I trust in all this I also managed to answer your question.


Peter


lol well Nottingham is actually as you say a city.


hey what about North Yorkshire...

Humberside does not exist as a county anymore.. it has gone back to it's original roots.. north humberside being the East Riding of Yorkshire, yes a county and South Humberside North East Lincolnshire, another county but then again my husband, being a Yorkshire Man through and through, never recognised North Humberside.

[Peter_uk_can]

What about "North Yorkshire" !!|wave|

[SBSFamilyhistory]

I know it is not the north riding of yorkshire, although I have heard it called that.. but it was as though it didn't exist.|computer|

[Peter_uk_can]

As per my first post, I was trying to keep the explanation simmple. ;)

See...... I even have trouble spelling the word.. :confused:

[melsibob]

Some of us who are Lincolnshire through and through never recognised Humberside - unless it happened to be your paymaster! It would be really useful if people stopped using this as a postal address too as it no longer exists|soapbox|

[Peter_uk_can]

Hi again Shari...... See what you started....:D:D:D:D

[Neil Wilson]

I am confused. Is Nottingham a town within Nottinghamshire or is Nottingham a town in the Midlands. I think the "shire" part is confusing. Thank you
For my ten penny worth (hey I live here), I think it is a city. But the road I live on is in a suburb (was a parish in it's own right years ago) is just classed as Nottingham, unless you work for the council housing department then it is referred to the village 3 miles away (just seen my council tax bill and they have that correctly address!). So if the local council can not get it right, what chance of you got.
Also, please note, it is sometimes written as Nottm, although the council seems to prefer N these days for some reason.

Oh it is in the East Midlands if you want to be more confused.

[Alan Welsford]

This isn't doing too badly, considering the original question was just one line long. :D

I thought I'd stay out of the "town" / "city" side of things, but, hey, well......

[sharinj]

Well thank you all. Essentially "shire" means county. Got it. The reason I asked this question was regarding a CD I bought thinking it would help me along the path to Tarpy's of Nottingham. The CD is White's History & Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853. Could find nothing. My guess is the Tarpy's were just too common to be of any significance. It is a give a way if anyone would like it.

[Alan Welsford]

Well thank you all. Essentially "shire" means county. Got it.
Although by no means all our counties end in "shire".

And you wil not always find the matching town or city, I think.

e.g. Wiltshire - there's no town called "Wilt".

I think Wilton was an old name for Trowbridge, (but I'm happy to be put right!).

We don't like to make it too easy!

Alan

[Neil Wilson]

Well thank you all. Essentially "shire" means county. Got it. The reason I asked this question was regarding a CD I bought thinking it would help me along the path to Tarpy's of Nottingham. The CD is White's History & Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853. Could find nothing. My guess is the Tarpy's were just too common to be of any significance. It is a give a way if anyone would like it.
If White's Nottinghamshire Directory is anything like his Derbyshire one (which I transcribed), only those who owned/ran businesses and those with money were mentioned.
You could try the historical directories site (http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/index.asp) but most of the listing are in the same format. Failing that, visit Parish Chest (http://www.parishchest.com/)

[imogen]

I'm a native of Nottingham (although I don't live there now), but I remember reading in some quite authoratative book (which, of course, I can't now remember) that Nottinghamshire wasn't one of the original 7 counties defined as constituting The Midlands (these were Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Leicestershire, & Northamptonshire) So Notts, was, officially the brginning of "the north". Don't know where this definition came from or if you have to say it is meaningless today. Certainly, when I was young (now in my 50s) Nottm had a much more "northern" feel to it, but I've a feeling that that applies to a lot of places....but there used to be a very great split in mentality between the northern & southern villages of the county...probably not so true now

[MythicalMarian]

As per my first post, I was trying to keep the explanation simmple. ;)

See...... I even have trouble spelling the word.. :confused:

Hehe - I'll keep it very simple for our OP. Nottingham is the County town (aka 'capital') of the county of Nottinghamshire, and as I'm a Manchester person, yep - it is definitely in the Midlands :D

Seriously - you would find the county and the town bracketed within the Midlands on most genealogical indexes - I'm pretty sure of that.

[Peter_uk_can]

Here is a cute little site that lists the present counties of England, some names of towns and cities therein and also includes a few pretty pics to calm the nerves whilst trying to come to terms with what was where, when it was there and why, where it was, is now named somewhere else, which was not there before, but elsewhere. Then counties that were once nowhere are now in the place where other counties once were but not always.



http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/counties

[imogen]

Sorry, didn't want to muddy the waters for anyone. Yes, any modern book will list Nottingham under The Midlands, but, if you're looking at older books for any reason (eg trade directories that aren't resitricted to one county....I've got one or two), it might be listed under "the north". Suspect the whole idea of the East Midlands came up with the division of television regions....until then the Midlands had MAINLY (but not always) been used to cover what we now call the West Midlands.....there was far more use of terms such as the Dukeries & the Peak District etc etc