Talk:Hawkhurst, Kent Genealogy

Hawkhurst is a parish in Kent in the Diocese of Canterbury which covers a portion of Sussex; it has been administratively a civil parish in Kent and ecclesiastically part of Kent. FamilySearch persists in describing it in Sussex! Hope that the parish boundary map convinces you of the correct county. Sopsteele 14:10, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

As we know from Vona Williams the sources of FamilySearch information for all their products were sometimes very dubious indeed; The scale of incorrect information in the FamilyHistory Library microfilm listing is also significant and needs reworking. Very often geographical challenge for American based contributors is leading to this type of inaccuracy.

How galling to find your family home suddenly transfer county!! For the record the small fragment of a parish boundary since adjusted to conform with local government boundary is not associated with either the county of Sussex records or the Diocese of Chichester; conversely there are Diocese of Chichester parishes in Kent. The hierarchy that the Family History Library adopts and over reliance on gazetteer material, pre 1851 parishes England Jurisdictions 1851 are often contributing to the errors that English readers and contributors instinctinctively know are wrong or mistaken. I dislike the Americanised approach of heading Family Search Records collections (and Historical Records) as England, County, place for these reasons. The civil parish in this case is clearly in Kent, the deposited records are in Kent, The Online Parish Clerk is in Kent, the registration district is in Kent all of which might have been clues that since the late 13th century Hawkhurst recorded history has been in that county. Some of the information layers in England Jurisdictions 1851 await correction as the information initially obtained was inaccurate according to the manager; whilst useful as a laboratory project it is not authoritative, the local archives in each county extensively use the county parish maps and catalogues and parish boundary maps to describe parish land overlapping geographical boundary features. There are thousands of boundary disputes which mean that roads divert around fields in a series of 90 degree bends and so do county boundaries. Unfortunately FamilySearch is staffed and has moderation and technical input from non-genealogists who create errors in this way. Thanks for moving the page back into the correct county, it is one many pages incorrectly attributed to the wrong county along cermonial and administrative county borders. In conversation with FamilySearch staff Lancashire/Yorkshire/Cheshire information layers in England Jurisdictions 1851 are most unreliable but all counties have inaccuracies. Chichgirl 10:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)