Adding United Kingdom to English profiles - can we please not? [closed]

Question

Tonight I noticed someone had "corrected" a profile that came up in my feed under one of my tagged names, by adding UK after England. As far as I am concerned, United Kingdom is a political union, not a place name and therefore I do not use it, in the same way I wouldn't add EU, the World, The Universe, and because I am English, not United Kingdomish. If anybody "corrects" my profiles, I'll be correcting them back.

Comments

I would never edit a profile to add the UK but I almost exclusively use the drop-down menu for locations which includes UK. It could be that happening rather than people deliberately adding it.

(I don't have the slightest problem with locations including United Kingdom myself.)

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I agree with you Gillian. United Kingdom in dropdown lists is irritating. I see a lot of it on familysearch and was struggling to get rid of it on some locations I used there. I hope I have managed tonavoid it here.

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Just to clarify - this wasn't in a dropdown, it was someone "correcting" it. I've edited my question to make it clearer now.

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Absolutely Gillian and Lynda. I've spent some time changing back these "corrections".

UK is totally unnecessary.

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Slightly off topic but this debate has brought up an old debate on my feed due to new comments, this is even more concerning as it lists adding 'The United Kingdom and Ireland' as a possible location quote..... This would be COMPLETELY wrong, Northern Ireland is part of the UK. Ireland is not. It has a separate government, and a different currency and you require a passport as an English/Welsh/Northern Ireland or Scots person to enter!

Does anyone know if that was put to bed? I don't have Irish ancestors but the political history between Ireland/Northern Ireland and England would absolutely require correct sourcing of families!!

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I would just like to point out that people from Northern Ireland do not need a passport to enter the Republic and in fact have the right to choose to be Irish citizens British citizens or both. 
While that does not alter the fact that the Republic has a completely different government, and that all other points stated are correct at the present time, this was not always the case. I quote from Wikipedia because it explains it much better than I could!

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, which resulted in Ireland seceding from the Union and forming the Irish Free State in 1922. Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

 

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I know I am rather late coming to this.

I would agree that anything after the Acts of Union in 1801 should include United Kingdom unless it is Eire post the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Although we do not commonly include United Kingdom in everyday usage it is as much a part of a place name as United States of America.

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Was England not formed as a political Union of several smaller kingdoms, therefore by your logic we shouldn't use England on our profiles.

Personally I believe that as the United Kingdom is a sovereign state, unlike the EU, that if people want to add it, they should be able to.

However if you don't want to use if yourself then people should not be editing your profiles to fit within their views.

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Yeah, but the separate Kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, etc were so long ago and pre-William I that it would be ridiculous to use those entities for anyone other than those we know were born there in the time those names were the actual place designation.  Today those places are mostly the English Counties, no?

Same with the early Kingdoms of Eire, yes?  I have a collateral "uncle" who was from Silesia, Prussia .. pre-Germany.  I won't put Germany for him, because there wasn't a Germany.  Today where he was born is Poland (I think it is without checking).  I won't put Poland for him because Silesia wasn't Polish when he was born.

The UK is like the EU .. a political entity .. and if those who live there think it shouldn't be used, I ain't using it.  We'd be more accurate to use GB (Great (or Greater) Britain), than UK, because at least GB designates the physical rather than the political.

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I agree with you not putting Germany for your uncle, as Germany did not exist at the time, however, would you put Germany if he was born in 1911 for example. 

Germany at the time was an Empire consisting of smaller states many of which had individual identities.

The United Kingdom is Sovereign state, as is the USA and many other polities which I'm sure are being added to profiles somewhere.

European Union (EU), international organization comprising 28 European countries and governing common economic, social, and security policies (Encyclopedia Brittanica)

As for the people living in the UK, not wanting it used. I'm British born and bred.  Great Britain is an Island within the UK not a state in its own right

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Peter,

Your last point is the key one. Others shouldn't be playing arbitrary games with the profiles of others. Valid contributions OK.

As far as I am concerned I am English and every one of my ancestors as far back as I can get (in the 1600s) was English. Anything else is artificial.

There is no such term as UKish.

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Hi Martin

My view is quite simple.

United Kingdom should be used at the profile managers discretion.  (I don't usually but this post has got me annoyed)

It should show the state as well "England, United Kingdom"

No one should be altering profiles to specifically add United Kingdom without the profile managers consent.

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I'll agree 1 & 3. Not 2.

Answer 1

Be patient with some of us. Some might of thought that United Kingdom may be equal to United States. When in fact is more equal to North America instead. Not thinking that United Kingdom includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. After researching this, because I was curious, it would actually be "Town, County, England, Great Britain, United Kingdom, British Isles." That is a lot to type in. So I agree with your statement you need to state the country instead of using U.K.

 

Comments

I hope that nobody starts to follow the long string of locational names that Tia has listed here just because this has been chosen as best answer. It is sufficient to stop at country. Anything else tagged on the end is unecessary.

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I notice that when I look for towns or places in England on Google maps, it usually shows up on the search box as Town name and then UK - with NO specified county or country!!

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I found a little map that shows the difference between, Great Britain, UK and British Isles!!

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2011/08/whats-the-difference-between-uk-britain-and-british-isles/

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Excellent map, Robynne! Thank you!

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Oh no Linda, I wasn't suggesting that at all. I agree with you, stopping after the country is sufficient enough. We don't type in North America after USA, we really don't need to type in UK after England.

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Along the same lines, why would we add USA?  The United States is a confederacy of sovereign states united for mutual defense and a limited number of other purposes.  Rhode Island is to the USA as England is to the UK.

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I think the word confederacy is the wrong word.

Confederacy is defined as: an alliance of people or groups formed for an illicit purpose

Illicit is defined as: forbidden by law, rules, or custom.

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Well, that is certainly one meaning of the word but not the most frequent one and certainly not one applicable to this context.  In a language such as English where 'bad' can mean 'good' it is always dangerous to separate the words from the context.  Here is a fuller definition in which the most frequent usage is synonymous with federation:

con·fed·er·a·cy

kənˈfed(ə)rəsē/

noun

1. a league or alliance, especially of confederate states.

   synonyms:

   federation, confederation, alliance, league, association, coalition, consortium, syndicate, group, circle; More

   • another term for Confederate States of America.

     noun: the Confederacy

   • an alliance of people or groups formed for an illicit purpose.

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Just to clarify, the United Kingdom actually is equivalent to the United States in the sense that both are classed as "sovereign states" who are, for instance, members of the United Nations, signatories to the Geneva Conventions, members of NATO etc etc.

Scotland is, in some ways, comparable to Texas in that both have their own devolved administrations, their own laws, elected parliaments and recognised right of self-determination.

However, for genealogical purposes I believe we should end with "England" and "United States" as this is the most common practice in family history studies.

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Thank you, Thomas I did read that out of context and I apologize.

Answer 2

Please be real for a moment: English, Scotch, Welsh, Northern Irish members sit in the same parliament, participate in the same government, have the main laws regulating their lives made in the same place. There are no internal border controls and people can move freely from one part of the country to another. All that is a far cry from the reality of North America where many Mexicans are considered illegal immigrants in the United States and subject to deportation. If Trump takes the US out of the Paris Accords that changes nothing to the status of Canada or Mexico.

Before 1803 what you would probably not hesitate calling Germany consisted of hundreds of sovereign territories, many with their own separate armies, currencies, even measures of length and weight, often warring each other. Their only commonality was their fealty to the Holy Roman Emperor, not even language and culture. Would any of you who are denying the existence of the United Kingdom and declare it just a geographical coincidence like North America really argue that we need to stop at Herrschaft Dagstuhl or Reichsgrafschaft Gronsveld without further delineating to what political entity they belonged?

Comments

I don't think anyone is denying the existence of the UK, USA, North America or anything of political status. We are all a proud member of each of our own nations and in no way trying to diminish that.

What we are discussing is how to precisely cite a source based on location, so that a hundred years from now, our descendants can find what location and time period we are sourcing. Who knows in a hundred years we may all be part of a World Federation. (star trek fan here folks)

If someone was to cite: Yorkshire, U.K. how would any know it was in England? Just like citations here in the US we include the state but not always the USA after. It is just assumed. Yes I know I just contradicted myself on precision. That is why we are having a discussion on it. What is too precise? What is enough to let future generations find us? It has nothing to do with political status.

In my opinion if the document is government related then UK, US and others needs to be included. I also believe the citation should be based on the time period. Virginia the state vs Virginia the Colony for example. Also there is the matter of Territories. You could just cite Puerto Rico, but how would you know that it is part of the US Territories at this time in history?

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Well stated and I agree 100%!

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We have many people from many countries. I have never seen a political statement in WT before. IMHO A political statement should be  taken to a news site such as a news television site or a newspaper site. I think we take a lot of enjoyment that we as genealogists stay to our common ground and not begin to point our political disagreements to each other whether they pertain to or do not pertain to the original question. As for United Kingdom or not. I myself do not see the necessity of adding  United Kingdom because these countries belong to the UK and not  any other geographical  area. It is not important to repeat  where they are. Also we do not say United States or Canada of North America.

Answer 3

Agreed, I've seen this before on some of the profiles I follow and I would say we should leave "England" as the final item and should revert any changes that make this "England, United Kingdom".

This is because the standard genealogical pattern is to use England as the final identifier of the country. Whilst it would be normal to use the sovereign state as the final identifier, England is generally accepted as an exception to that general rule.

A couple of clarifications:

Firstly, the top level unit for international affairs today (indeed since the Westphalian system was introduced in the mid 1600s) is the "sovereign state". These are the countries that are members of the UN, exchange ambassadors, are eligible to join treaties etc. The best current list for that is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states

Under that definition, England is part of the sovereign state called the United Kingdom, just as Texas is part of the sovereign state called the United States.

In reality, of course, the world isn't as simple as all that. Somaliland, the Vatican, Abkhazia, Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan - none of these fit into this neat category. Historically, neither did the native american nations, the princely states of India nor the Holy Roman Empire. However, this Westphalian fiction is the basis for international affairs.

Secondly, there is nothing ambiguous about "Yorkshire, United Kingdom". There are no counties in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland that share their name with another county in another part of the UK. There are certain towns and cities - Newport, United Kingdom, for instance, could refer to a number of different places. However, these can be disambiguated with the county - Newport, Monmouthshire; Newport, Pembrokeshire etc.

Comments

If we want to be an international site we should be able to agree that every country, including the one we happen to live in or have otherwise a special connection to, should be treated the same. I always wonder if somebody living in Akwa Ibom would think that the "standard genealogical pattern" in their country would consider their state as the "final identifier".

I have been dabbling in non-UK genealogy for about 40 years and must say that I have not come upon any general acceptance that England is the exception to a general rule.

Answer 4

Being from England, I always put England. I never add UK. UK is made up of four nations. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. To simply put UK, is unclear, because it could be either of those countries.

There was no United Kingdom, prior 1707 and yet I've seen profiles that state UK, before that date. Dear oh dear.

Answer 5

It would be weird if someone was only adding UK, and not as part of correcting a typo. However, while it may be superfluous it is not wrong.

The UK has one seat at the UN, one seat in the EU and one team in the Olympics. UK is the country. England, et al might be called countries due to history, but I don't see anyway they function differently to states . As far as I'm aware, due to being the dominant entity in the Union, England doesn't even have it's own separate parliament.

Comments

Just goes to show how the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have NOT made their mark in the world...

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Your comment made me smile Ros; I was reading this debate to my Welsh speaking father and English speaking mother! His view , was as you can imagine rather strong on this point! The cultural/language differences even today are strong,believe it or not I have family who speak only basic English on my Welsh side!

What matters is the cultural identity of the individual and I think if anyone who has commented on here asked a Scot, Welsh or Irishman where they were from they would NEVER hear the response Britain or the UK

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Exactly Lizzie, and the profiles I've created are about the people, not the political boundaries. I doubt any of my ancestors, post 1707 felt UKish.

I never said adding UK to England was wrong, just political correctness and a pernickety waste of time that adds no value and that nobody English would appreciate. People in the UK feel strongly about their country designations and  their counties. If you tried to tell a scotsman to use UK, I'm sure you'd get told in no uncertain terms how unacceptable that was.

When the small county of Rutland was subsumed by Leicestershire, there was a public outcry and the Rutland people refused to accept that Rutland no longer existed. They eventually got their way and Rutland was reinstated as a county, so don't imagine that the English don't feel as strongly about their roots as the other countries that make up this political union.

As I said before, we are (at the moment anyway) a part of Europe too but nobody ignores England and just puts Yorkshire, Europe. To put Yorkshire, UK would just be plain wrong to any English person. It might even get confused for Ukraine by someone who is not from Europe.

Answer 6

Until I came to wikitree I had never encountered in genealogy, the use of United Kingdom, as an identifier that should be used in place names after England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.    I personally don't think it adds anything, however I do think that it is beneficial to have a tidy uniform implementation of a United Kingdom policy.   

I also want to say that the use of time period dependent country naming policy is confusing to people who have limited knowledge of the history of a certain area.

For example I live in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  Everybody should have a fair idea where that is.

Australia is a federation of Sovereign states.  The Colony of Queensland was a sovereign entity created by a Monarchial Parliamentary Constitution granted to it by Queen Victoria after two Acts was passed by the British Parliament.[see]  

So when I'm adding a place name to a profile for a pioneer of this 'area' is the town Brisbane or Moreton Bay?  Was that in the 'state' or colony of Queensland or New South Wales? Or was that the country of Queensland or New South Wales? Without a very good knowledge of the history of the place we can't even know what the continent was called - was it Sahul, Gandwana, Nova Hollandia (New Hollande), Terra Australis, or Australia.  And I haven't even tried to canvass the Aboriginal names for the area.

Take for instance the death of Patrick Logan.  Wikipedia says he died October 1830 near Mount Beppo and was buried at      Surry Hills, Sydney (which is in New South Wales)  His death is registered by the New South Wales Government but where is Mount Beppo?   "Mount Beppo, Queensland, Australia" is a place name now but none of various parts were in use then.  There was no Hill nor locality named at that time Mt Beppo.  There was no state nor colony of Queensland in 1830.  There was no Sovereign country named Australia.  Wikipeadia tells us that  'The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of "The Australia Directory" ' but was that before or after Patrick Logan died?  "Mount Beppo, New South Wales, Australia" was never a place name, neither was "Mount Beppo, Colony of New South Wales".  Where he died would have had at that time an aboriginal place name, district name and tribal area name but you won't find them listed in any historical documents.  So... what would I use... "Mount Beppo, Queensland, Australia" - because I know that is the best descriptor of where he died (nb. Mount Beppo is both a hill and a surrounding locality.) 

What about Birth, Marriages, and Death registrations.  If pioneer profile encountered such an event during a certain time period of our history, you can find his BDM event registered in both the BDM indexes of the "Government of New South Wales, Australia" and the "Government of Queensland, Australia"   

 

 

 

Comments

You do have a point there. I think in situations like this we might need to include a small brief history of the local area or just a short note to help the researcher know where to look. In history and in the future there will always be border and name changes. For example I am working on Orange County, NC but later on parts of the Orange County becomes part of Durham County. I have to make sure to reference both, because there could be records in both counties.

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I too would like to see a definitive UK or not UK policy when it is date appropriate.

I agree it is a good idea to give the place name used by the people at the time. The problem is that this information is not always available or easily found. I try and do the best I can for New Zealand but the drop down boxes and even the geographic categories for the New Zealand project make this quite challenging. My default tends to be the modern name and geographic area if I'm stuck.

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It is difficult however if a UK naming policy hinges around some date that requires a precise knowledge of the dates of political events of which the general population of the world is unaware.  

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So just keep England as England.  It's been around since the 10th century, so people shouldn't have a problem with that.

Answer 7

To throw a spanner into these works, I am a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom.  I did not become a citizen of England, or Scotland, or Wales,  I became a citizen of the United Kingdom.      So if anyone asked me what my nationality was, I would say I was a British (or UK) citizen.   I think it is acceptable, therefore, for someone to be described as coming from the UK provided it makes sense within the relevant time period.

Comments

But as someone born in England and culturally English, that is what I call myself. I see no reason to add UK, as everyone knows where it is.

On a linguistic note, when in Europe

Je suis anglais. Ich bin Engländer.

I'd never use British. Nor would any Scots or Welsh friends.

Let's face it, there isn't a right answer for everybody. Within sensible limits let's leave it to the managers.

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I am part Welsh, part English. I am proud of both sides of my heritage, and while I may add UK in sources because it is already there I would never list my Welsh family as just being from the UK. They would kill me! My Dads first language is Welsh, in fact I'm the first generation in the welsh side of the family to have English as a first language!

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... and my husband is a naturalized citizen of the US (a dual citizen who also carries an EU passport). When asked, he says quite proudly, that he's from Scotland. Not the EU, not the UK, not Britain. It's all in the origins.

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Yep, but none of this answers my psychological challenge - I am not naturalised English, Scottish or Welsh - you can look at my citizenship papers - I am definitely British.

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Nationality is a different matter .When we fill in the data field we are stating the country someone was born, married or died in.  My husband was born in Kenya, he is  British, as was his father who was born in Basutoland and his father who was born in England  (none of them were naturalised). He has a gg grandfather who was born in Hanover in 1813 but was naturalised in  1846, his application for  naturalisation (by the language written by the official dealing with his case)   notes he has lived in England for 11 years and has married an Englishwoman.

If you ask us where we were married, it would be in Devon, England not Devon, UK. More importantly for genealogy, you'd look for the documentation held by the GRO for England and Wales, (if we had married in Edinburgh you'd look for the cert held in Scotland and likewise in N Ireland for a marriage there)

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Agreed, and although my husband is naturalized elsewhere, if someone asked him where he was born, he'd say Scotland.

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I'm a dual citizen too Leigh, I see your family is Australian, I have Australian citizenship and I could say I'm Australian but I couldn't say I was a Queenslander for example because I was not born there and my family are not from there.

A similar thing exists, for most people, for being British versus English, Scottish, etc.

The UK and being British exists at the top of the legal structure, but the countries of the UK and the nationalities still exist and are extremely important

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Leigh,

You actually became a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Answer 8

Apologies if this sounds like a rant as I've added a few comments too but I've just been sourcing and it occurred to me, (& I don't claim to be very good at this yet);

All UK census records are broken down by Country. BMD records are broken down by country

Yes you can search for all UK census & BMD because the internet is helpful? These are are actually all separate records recorded as English, Welsh, Scottish, N.Ireland in their original form but bulked together for the purposes of sourcing?

Comments

And Lizzie, the original (paper) Scottish records are all physically kept in Scotland.

Answer 9

After re-reading the discussion I have to say that all this would be fine if we were talking about a British genealogy website, or maybe a site for former British colonies, but we aspire to be an international site, officially encouraging people to use their (non-English) languages and scripts, etc. We are creating records in a medium that, so they say, will never disappear but always float around somewhere in the ether. As I am looking at 500 year old and older records right now I have to think of the people who may be perusing the records we create now in 500 years (if we manage to survive that long as a technically capable species). Given the dwindling relevance of Western Europe and North America they may very well be speaking Chinese and look at the UK the way many mainland Europeans do. If the French talk about les Anglais or the Germans about Engländer most of them don't give a hoot whether they talk about Scots or Welsh or English, they use it synecdochally. Maybe we all need to stop the navel-gazing when it comes to the places we live in or have a close connection to and consider how the rest of the world sees it.

Answer 10

 I find that last comment rude as well as wrong. Its not about naval gazing its about being true to ancestral sources. I may be new to wiki but bringing it back to the original question the source citation is sufficient. The addition of UK to English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh sources especially if they are parish held records is superfluous. 

As for research in complexly changing political landscapes they should be cited as the original source dictates and if this place is part of a new country then that should be in notes if it is believed that this place name has become lost in time. I think England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are safe for the next 500 years personally speaking, as are all existing places we don't live in the dark ages and we have records.

As far as the naturalised question, again you should reflect your place name at birth in the same way we recognise LNAB. Include your naturalised country in notes.

For example we cite LNAB even when it includes a spelling error and this is addressed in notes. We should be citing all profiles as the original source dictates.... A source citation example from ancestry includes only 1 use of UK.... Which is the full name of where the source is currently held, not what the source citation itself says. Again you could include that in the notes.

Source Information

Ancestry.com. 1911 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911.

Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England. The National Archives gives no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or fitness for the purpose of the information provided. Images may be used only for purposes of research, private study or education. Applications for any other use should be made to the National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU.

Description

This database includes householders’ forms from the 1911 Census of England. 

 

Comments

All I am trying to say is that while it is entirely clear to you and may be every other native English speaker doing genealogy what you mean when you use England, that is not the same for people outside your frame of reference. People have for a long time used the name of a part of a people they were most used to for the whole country, The French name for Germany Allemagne is from the Alamanni, the German people living closest to their lands, the Czech Německo from the Nemeti, another German population - and many non-English speakers take England as pars pro toto for the UK. So, looking from the outside in using England is not unambiguous.

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I guess with WikiTree's guidelines to use their standards it doesn't really matter what the UK, etc, would be known in other languages, just in the languages of the British Isles.

While it is an international site those complexities can be explained in categories and projects.

Answer 11

Why you should say that baffles me. The United Kingdom sits in the United Nations. The French call it Royaume Uni, the Italians Regno Unito. It is (still) part of the European Union, or don't you like that name either?

Some people might think that calling somewhere the United States of America might be a bit bizarre, particularly with the latest POTUS. That doesn't get away from the name being correct.

Whether it is useful to have it on profiles is another question altogether. Personally, I can see no reason for it, but don't slag off my country.

Comments

Not understanding why this is closed - especially with now this big Brexit controversy going on - plus the fact that having read through this whole thing twice I am not sure how the policy has been decided - I would say leave that off - but I sure wonder if the recent changes bring a different decision to this policy

still confused