Mental Meanderings

England, drowning in maps

Ok, so a part of Genealogy is getting to know the places these ancestors were born. At the moment I'm working with family that were all born in England, mostly around Middlesex. But England... how does anyone there figure their way around? It's a huge maze of streets and localities, counties, regions etc.

I have found a fairly decent map at http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/Maps which allows me to be fairly broad in my description as well as letting me search specific streets/addresses when I have them. And then I can zoom in and out to try and work out the surrounding area's and thus place the location with others I'm getting familiar with.

Unfortunately this map doesn't seem to have any area division lines? Where does one reagion/county end and another begin? Hoxton for example seems to be right in the middle of Islington and Shoreditch. So which does it belong within? Or maybe neither? Are both of these places within Middlesex? If so how do you know the bounderies of Middlesex? Does it stretch all the way to Paddington and Pancras?

Not only is the dilema of place names in the hear and now, but England is hundreds, thousands, of years old and it has changed a lot with time. What a place was called may not be what it is now called. So you have to learn not only it's name today but what that same region has been known as in the past.

It's all driving me fairly loony. But hopefully given time and perhaps some wise English founded assistance I'll get the hang of the place. I am surprised to find out that most of my ancestors lived fairly central to London. Would it stand to reason that they were fairly well off financially? I know in Western Australia the closer you live to Perth the more expensive it costs (at least going Metro, once in the country things vary on closeness to the ocean). Does this same reasoning work for England? Or were there mostly poor hovels in central London.

It's times like these I wish Scarlett weren't soaking up the sun in Greece. You lucky thing, I'm still green-eyed with envy. Don't hurry home on my account Scarlett but when you do get back perhaps you can save me from my English Map Quandery.