Reconstructing a 19th-Century Riverside Community with H(istorical) GIS

Useful Software

• QGIS (qgis.org) - free, open-source GIS software. There are other GIS tools available, but having a free alternative was a great way to get started. There is a strong community here, and with a bit of self-education too, I was able to get stuck into it fairly quickly.
• Airtable (airtable.com) - I used Airtable for much of my data analysis. You can use Excel files, Google Sheets, or any other database tool you prefer. What I found useful with Airtable was the ability to create specific views that I could export as CSV and import into QGIS. I created separate tables for all of my People, Properties, Owners, Occupiers, and Tithe map data for each Census year. I also created tables to help me normalise Occupations (using a combination of HISCO and I-CEM Occupation Codes), Place Names, and Surnames for cross-year comparisons and to address spelling inconsistencies. I highly recommend thinking about database design early on if you embark on a project like this because you will end up with a lot of data very quickly!

Useful Maps & GIS Databasets

Tithe Maps (and Apportionments)

A tithe map is one of the earliest detailed, large-scale maps held by most English and Welsh parishes. Tithes were an old system of paying one-tenth of your agricultural produce to the parish church. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 replaced this in-kind payment with a fixed cash sum, and to determine fairly how much each landowner should pay, the government had every tithe-liable parish surveyed and mapped, with every field, building, and plot assigned a number. (nationalarchives.gov)

Each map is paired with a written apportionment (sometimes called an award) or a ledger that lists, plot by plot, who owned the land, who actually occupied and worked it, what it was used for, and how much was payable. The map numbers and the apportionment entries cross-reference each other, so together they let you pinpoint exactly which building or field belonged to whom in the late 1830s to early 1850s. For genealogists and local historians, this is often the earliest point at which you can put a named person against a specific, mappable property, which is exactly what made this project possible.

Coverage isn’t complete; only roughly three-quarters of English parishes were surveyed this way (some had already commuted tithes through earlier enclosure and were never mapped under this Act), while virtually all Welsh parishes were covered. Quality also varies: only about one in six maps was accurate enough to be officially “sealed” by the Tithe Commissioners as legal evidence, so some are excellent surveys, and others are closer to rough sketches.

There are two main ways to get hold of one:

• Buy a scan from the county record office. I obtained mine from the Hampshire Record Office (HRO) as a digital raster file: a high-resolution colour scan of the full parish sheet, plus the scanned pages of the apportionment award book. It cost £30, which I thought was well worth it for a colour scan I could georeference myself in QGIS. HRO’s terms specify that the image is for “research or private study." What’s available varies a lot by county: some record offices (Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, County Durham, East Sussex, and others) have digitised their tithe maps and put copies online, sometimes for free; others only supply copies on request for a fee; a handful of parishes may have no surviving tithe map at all. It’s worth searching “[county name] tithe map” or contacting your county record office directly to ask what they hold and in what format. (shop.hants.gov.uk)
• View through TheGenealogist.com (subscription required) In partnership with The National Archives, TheGenealogist has digitised the national tithe map and apportionment collection and geocoded it against a modern map viewer, so you can search and query the data without doing any georeferencing yourself. It’s a good way to explore an area before committing to a purchase, though the scans are greyscale, which makes it difficult to make out the land-use details recorded in colour on the originals. In Bursledon’s case, residential buildings were hand-painted in a light orange watercolour, and that distinction disappears almost entirely in the grayscale scan. If your research depends on colour-coded detail like this, it’s worth going trying to seek out an original colour version. (thegenealogist.co.uk)

Ordnance Survey Maps and Datasets

For the other years of my study I used the Ordnance Survey’s 6-inch maps, surveyed in 1859 and 1895. My main source was the National Library of Scotland’s map library, which is free to use and most maps from this period may already be scanned and georeferenced (some exceptions may apply so worth checking back if this is not the case for your area!) With the georeferenced maps from here you can drop the them straight into QGIS aligned to modern coordinates. If you’ve never used their georferenced maps before, their georeferencing help page is a good starting point, and there are some useful how-to videos linked from there.

UK academic users may also have access to Digimap (EDINA), which offers georeferenced OS map TIFFs at high resolution. If you’re a UK university student or staff member, it’s worth checking whether your institution provides Digimap access. I think it’s a genuinely good resource, but I sadly lost my access after I left university! This won’t be accessible for most people, but if you have university affiliation with it, do check it out.

It may surprise you that Ordnance Survey has some modern open datatasets that can be loaded into GIS software. The ‘OS OpenMap – Local’ dataset from the OS Data Hub is free under the Open Government Licence and gives you modern building outlines and boundaries to work from if this is something you need. Another one to be aware of is the ‘OS Open UPRN’ (Unique Property Reference Number) dataset. This only displays the UPRN for each location on the map, not the full address (these are usually part of their premium services), however paired with a UPRN lookup, it might help you track down a modern location.

Physical originals for OS maps may be available to view at record offices or archives, there’s some at the National Archives, but they often advise you to visit British Library instead because it is a dedicated repository. While it’s possible to add a phyiscal map that you’ve photographed or scanned from a repository into GIS software, you will have to ensure it is a quality enough image to be able to georeference this yourself. This may involve a good quality camera and the ability to lay the maps flat at the location (some of the sheets may be very large!) Always check too if there’s a photograph fee if you plan on visiting a repository or archives for the purpose of taking photographs of maps or documents.

OpenStreetMap

For a modern basemap, I used OpenStreetMap. QGIS lets you add OSM as an XYZ Tiles layer via the Browser panel, so I created an XYZ connection to the OSM tile server and then dropped that layer into my project as a basemap.

Manorial and Enclosure Maps

I didn’t end up using these for this project, but they’re worth knowing about if your own area doesn’t have a tithe map, or if you want to push further back in time. Enclosure maps and awards date from the mid-18th to mid-19th century and record how open fields were divided up into the hedged, fenced fields we’re used to seeing today so they can predate tithe maps. Manorial maps and surveys can go back much further still, sometimes to the 16th or 17th century. Both are typically held at county record offices, and The National Archives’ Manorial Documents Register is a good place to start tracking down what survives for a given manor. Even if your area has a title map it’s still worth checking these, Burseldon was a part of the Manor of Bishop’s Waltham and I did find an interesting map in a box of manor records at the National Archives, but the years were a little too late outside of my research period.

Primary Records

The following primary record sources will look familiar to any genealogist.

You can find these records from a variety of sources, some free, some subscription, and the coverage may vary:

• FamilySearch (free with account)
• Ancestry (subscription)
• FindMyPast (subscription)
• TheGenealogist (subscription)
• Free UK Genealogy (free, open data, covers some census, civil registration indexes, and parish registers)

The records you’ll find on these databases can overlap, but they can also vary, so it’s worth checking coverage on any project. The reasons comes down to the individual licensing agreements each archive or record office has struck with that company. The same parish register might be exclusive to one subscription site and completely absent from another. As a professional, I subscribe to these myself, but if you’re just starting out, it’s worth checking your local public library first, many offer free in-branch access to the major subscription databases through their library card.

Census Records

Census returns are the record type I relied on most. England and Wales ran a census every ten years from 1841, and from 1851 onward each one lists everyone in a household by name, age, relationship to the head of household, occupation, and birthplace. While you might find addresses in densly populated area, most rural locations lack addresses or identifying features altogether. There is wide coverage for these across all the major databases, but transcription and indexing quality does vary so I do recommend searching a few if you’re struggling to locate something for your own ancestors.

Also worth knowing, the 1841 census is far less detailed than later years (no relationships, ages rounded down for adults, no birthplace beyond “born in this county: yes/no”), this can be frustrating for a researcher just starting out, but it also makes the tithe maps even more valuable of a resource if your area had them.

Parish Registers

Before civil registration started in 1837, and often for decades after (people were slow to change habits), baptisms, marriages, and burials were recorded by the parish church. These registers are how I filled in the gaps between census years and pushed the family lines back before 1841. For Bursledon, the originals and bishop’s transcripts are held at Hampshire Archives and Local Studies in Winchester, and I accessed digitised, indexed versions through Ancestry’s Hampshire parish collections and FamilySearch’s transcribed birth and christening records. Coverage for Bursledon runs from 1536 for baptisms, marriages, and burials, with separate post-1813 collections once the standardised printed register format came in.

One quirk worth flagging if you’re new to parish registers: pre-1813 entries are often just a single line (“John, son of James Coles, baptised”), while post-1813 registers use a printed form with columns for parents’ names, abode, and father’s occupation, a huge upgrade for genealogists, and one reason my evidence gets noticeably richer after that date.

Civil Registration

From July 1837, births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales had to be registered with the state as well as (or instead of) the church, giving genealogists a second, parallel record set. Bursledon falls under the South Stoneham registration district. I worked mainly from the indexes, there is also wide coverage for these indexes across the major genealogy sites. From the indexes you should be able to get enough to identify the correct quarter and district to then order a full certificate from the General Register Office (GRO) if you need the extra detail a certificate provides (parents’ names, full dates, addresses or residences, informant’s name, exact cause of death, and so on). I didn’t rely on full certificates for this project, the indexes plus census and parish data gave me enough to work with, but it’s a route worth knowing about if you hit a wall. It’s also always advisable to order full certificates if you’re doing complete family history research. Indexes alone may not give you all of the information you need, or may contain transcription errors that have carried through many years from the index books.

Another practical tip is I find the search at FreeBMD a little easier to use than the GRO one, particulary when it comes to searching by year ranges. GRO only lets you search within a two year period, whereas FreeBMD allows for a full range of years.

Wills and Probate

Wills turned out to be some of the richest material in the whole project, not just for who inherited what, but for what they reveal about family relationships, trust, and priorities. Before 1858, wills for this part of Hampshire were proved in the church courts of the Winchester Diocese, and I accessed the originals through Ancestry’s “Hampshire, England, Wills and Probates, 1398–1858” collection. After January 1858, probate moved to a national civil system, indexed in the National Probate Calendar.

Useful starting points if you want to search for your own family’s wills:

• Ancestry - holds the Hampshire pre-1858 will collection, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills (1384–1858, for wealthier or more mobile testators), and the post-1858 national probate calendar and will collections.
• Find a Will (HM Courts and Tribunals Service) - the official government service for finding and ordering copies of wills proved in England and Wales from 1858 onward. If your will is post-1858 and you don’t have Ancestry access, this is the direct route, and copies are inexpensive to order (only £1.50!)

The National Archives also holds wills and administrations, but only before 1858. Their guides for locating wills are genuinely helpful:

• National Archives - Wills and administrations after 1858
• National Archives - Wills and administrations before 1858

Newspapers

Local newspapers were full of surprises, property sales, death notices, and at least one very dramatic probate dispute read out for public consumption. My main source was the British Newspaper Archive, which is searchable and covers the regional titles that mattered for this project: the Hampshire Advertiser, Hampshire Telegraph, Hampshire Chronicle, Hampshire Independent, and the Southern Echo. I also used Newspapers.com for a couple of titles not fully covered by the British Newspaper Archive (the Hampshire Telegraph and Naval Chronicle and the Southampton Times and Hampshire Express).

Trade Directories

Trade and post office directories were the Victorian equivalent of a phone book crossed with Yellow Pages, annual (or near-annual) listings of tradespeople, professionals, and sometimes private residents by name, occupation, and address (though address for rural areas mostly likely just the village where they are based). They’re excellent for filling in the years between censuses, especially for pinning down when someone changed trade or moved locations. For this project I used the Southampton and district Post Office directories from the 1850s, which cover Bursledon as part of the wider postal district. Ancestry hosts a broad UK city and county directory collection, the University of Leicester’s Historical Directories of England and Wales is a free, browsable digitised archive. It’s also worth checking your local libraries or archives for physical volumes. I’m lucky enough to be based near the National Archives but they had a small collection of Southampton directories for my time period which listed some of my residents.

Land Tax Records

I didn’t end up needing these for the final research, but I did look through them! They are very large books! I do think they’re worth knowing about if your own project involves property ownership, particularly the later books which can sometimes have maps attached. Land tax records show who was assessed to pay tax on a property each year, which can help establish ownership and occupation year by year, sometimes back into the 18th century. The key collection is the Land Tax Redemption Office material held at The National Archives, Kew, Parish Books of Redemptions (series IR 22, 1799–1953) and Registers of Redemption Certificates (series IR 24, 1799–1963), both searchable via The National Archives’ Discovery catalogue. Ancestry also holds a digitised “UK, Land Tax Redemption, 1798” collection, which is a useful single-year snapshot if you just need a quick ownership check. The reason why these were less helpful for my research goes back to what what my previous mention of Bursledon being a part of the manor of Bishop’s Waltham. Any ownership of land on the manor was more likely dealt with through the manorial records instead of these land tax records. But depending on who you’re researching, you might also find records for them here too.

Further Reading

Here are a few books that I found really useful through the course of my research.

• Gregory, I.N. and Ell, P.S. (2007) Historical GIS: Technologies, Methodologies and Scholarship. Cambridge University Press.
• Gregory, I.N. and Geddes, A. (2014) Toward Spatial Humanities: Historical GIS and Spatial History. Indiana University Press.
• Kain, R.J.P. and Oliver, R.R. (1995) The Tithe Maps of England and Wales. Cambridge University Press.
• Higgs, E. (2005) Making Sense of the Census Revisited. Institute of Historical Research.
• Alderman, J. (1984) History of the Parish of Bursledon. Parochial Church Council of Bursledon.
• Ritchie, S. (1996) The Hamble River and much about Old Bursledon, 3rd rev. ed. Tandem Design.

Method in More Detail

1. Get hold of a scan or georeferenced file of the historical map you want to work with (see the Maps section above for where to find one).
2. Bring it into QGIS as a raster layer or link.
3. Georeference it (if not already), pick a handful of points that haven’t moved over the centuries (a church tower, a road junction, a distinctive bend in the river) and use them as control points to stretch and pin the old map onto modern coordinates.
4. Add a modern base layer for comparison, like OpenStreetMap, or add more historical maps you think will help tell your location’s story.
5. If you want to make use of more advanced GIS features, trace or outline each building, area, road, or features, you’re interested in as a vector polygon, sitting on top of the historical map.
6. Attach your genealogical data, census entries, parish register events, and so on, to each polygon as attributes by importing your CSV data layers.
7. Try out different ways of viewing your datasets on the maps. You can experiment with household movement or migration from census to census. Enumerator paths for a particular census year, or you can compare the maps to see which buildings appear or disappear over time.

Appendices

Everything below is the detailed evidence behind my research and case studies, which include the individual properties, the people who lived in them, some of the documents and transcriptions, the family trees. I approached the appendices on a property level and a head of household level. This is split across five pages: Property Profiles, Household Profiles, Transcriptions, Family Trees, and Maps.