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Thursday 20 January 2011

Those Places Thursday - Did you think Wales was a country?



Well of course Wales is a country, but it is also the name of a village in Yorkshire. It is in the heart of coal-mining country. You can see from the map above, from FamilySearch England Jurisdictions 1851 that it also close to the county boundaries with Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It is part of the Registration District of Worksop, which is in Nottinghamshire, but includes parishes from all three counties.

If you have ancestors in this area  they are very likely to have connections with the mining industry, and you may find that earlier generations had migrated from other coal-mining areas such as Northumberland and Durham, the West Midlands or South Wales (the country this time!). There are also two excellent local websites one of them devoted to Kiveton and Wales and another covering a wider area called J31.co.uk. The reason for the odd title of this site is that it covers the area around Junction 31 of the M1 motorway. If you have coal-mining ancestors from further afield you should still find much to interest you here.

3 comments:

  1. Ah, but is Cornwall a country? Put your hard hat on before you answer...! :) lol

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  2. These place names can be a great stumbling block for the unwary researcher. I live a few miles from Pennsylvania in one direction and Dunkirk in the other - and I am in South Gloucestershire.

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  3. I was in Jamestown, Virginia, a few years back. The ferry to 'Scotland' was awfully deceptive - definitely didn't get my money's worth...!

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