Where exactly was Sandford-on-Thames between 1829 and 1881?
I am having a difficult time figuring out if there are two of those places, one in Berkshire and one in Oxfordshire. I am finding this "Sandford-On-Thames (Oxon), Berkshire, England" as an event place in the 1881 England Census. I have looked at and read information about Sandford-on-Thames in various gazetteer entries and all of them say it is in Oxford. What I have found in Berkshire is a place called Sandford which has some churches in it. That census event place looks like it is in both Oxford and Berkshire in 1881. Are those two the same place or different places? How am I to document that in my genealogy and in FamilySearch FamilyTree? I would really appreciate some input from someone who is familiar with that area. The persons that started this question and search are William Jordan LKPH-SZS and Ellen Keen 9WRN-B9Y.
Thanks!
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@Jeana A @Graham Buckell @DavidBeck1 these gentlemen should be able to help you out as they live in England and have a far better knowledge of that than I do. I did do some research and found this https://www.parishmouse.co.uk/oxfordshire/sandford-on-thames-oxfordshire-family-history-guide/ but I am not sure it will be as helpful as they will be.
Kind Regards,
Shannon
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Sandford-on-Thames (Oxfordshire) is a different place to Sandford in Berkshire. They are 4.4 miles apart.
See
Sandford in Berkshire is more obscure. It is not listed as a parish on GENUKI. It is referred to there as Dry Sandford.
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Thank you! I understand what you have said to mean, if someone is listed in a christening record that would have been Sandford-on-Thames, Oxford. When the event place in the census says “Sandford-on-Thames (Oxon), Berkshire,” where is that? Berkshire or Oxford? That is confusing. Would that be the civil registration district?
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Sometimes, you just need to get to the original record (handy if there is even a citation / microfilm reference number against the source). Although, in this example, the place being referred to could well be Dry Sandford, some parishes spread across the border of two counties, so I believe it likely that part of parish of Sandford, Oxfordshire possibly did extend into Berkshire, it lying right on the border of the two counties.
In the case of the census, you should have no problem if you have access to the images - just go back and forward through the pages either side to see if the other locations are close to Sandford or Dry Sandford.
For christenings there should also be no problem in identifying the actual location, because - as Graham has pointed out - Dry Sandford was not a parish, so would have no records indexed against it in this manner.
Incidentally, I have two ancestors who are listed in different census returns as having being born in alternative counties. In both cases, the hamlet of birth was in one county, but the parish (church) was situated "across the border" in the other.
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Following on from my remarks above, if you have time you might be interested to check-out the actual examples to which I am referring!
Firstly, there is the ancestor born in Allenshields, Durham and, secondly, one born in Hume (or Humebyers), Berwickshire. In the one case, when the particular individual was resident in Durham, she is shown in the census as being born at Allenshields, Durham, but when living in Northumberland, the census shows her place of birth as "Blanchland, Northumberland" (the parish of which Allenshields appears to have been a part). Similarly, my ancestor born in Hume, Berwickshire is shown as having that birth location when he was living in Berwickshire, but as "Stichel, Roxburghshire" when resident in Roxburghshire. (The parish is alternatively known as "Stichel and Hume", but is included in records as a Roxburghshire parish.)
Looking closely at maps and checking out the GENUKI pages certainly helps clarify the confusion over these and similar examples!
(I even have a third example - hope this is not getting too boring! - of an ancestor born at Newsham, North Riding of Yorkshire. I could not find an event for her at Kirkby Ravensworth parish, then found that Newsham village lies partly in that parish and partly in adjoining Barningham parish.)
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Bear in mind that places of birth in census records were based on what the enumerators were told. One suspects that enumerators did their best to help the less literate but different enumerators will have had different ideas. I have seen many cases where there were slight variations in birth places (and, occasionally, more extreme variations) between different censuses. Examples include naming two neighbouring parishes where the person was born half way between and naming a parish in one census then a hamlet within that parish in the next census. The worst examples are usually when a child marries and is the person reporting to the enumerator (or his or her spouse) on the next census rather than the parent who usually has a clearer idea of where a child was born. The list goes on!
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