Genealogy Chat

Please can some-one explain.....Have recently traced family to Scotland to these places but do not understand if they are villages, towns, areas or counties.
My great grandmother is from New Monkland, Lanark. Is that a suburb of Lanark or an area in county Lanarkshire
Her father was born in Drummelzier, Peebles. Is that a suburb of Peebles or a village in Peebleshire.
What would be the difference between a parish or a suburb.
Look forward to some response that would help me understand.

Thanks for your reply. have googled and gone through many sites and am still trying to understand. I have read this one too so my question to this one would be:

Does a parish contain a village? and what does 'but it's a post office at Rachan-Mill'... mean ?? - the explanation is not so clear when one does not know about bourghs parish counties & shires.

I do however apreciate your taking the time to respond.
Thanks Regards - Lynda

Drumelzier (spelt with one "m") is a small village on the outskirts of Peebles which is quite a large town in the Scottish Boarders

It's difficult to explain if you are not familiar with different towns/villages etc.

A parish would be an area covered by the parish church but there could be more than one parish in a town and even more than one parish in a small village although if a village is quite small it may only have one parish.

Kath. x

Hi Lynda,
Try www.monklands.co.uk and click on home town at the top of the page. Also www.scottishmining.co.uk has a good section on Old and New Monkland. My great grandmother was born in Old Monkland and I got quite a bit of info from both these sites.
Sorcha

Over half the UK counties have a county town whose name is the same as the county (except maybe for the shire suffix), or sometimes towns which were historically part of the county, but were not recently part of the county (e.g., City of London, Berwick upon Tweed).

The standard adressing is to name the county, so if, say the town of Peebles is meant, then the address will be Peebles, Peebleshire, although naturally the latter will be abbreviated. Usually the first element of the pair is the town, village or parish. Especially in later 19th Scotland, outside of a few cities, the unit of local government was the civil parish, which nearly always coincided with the C of S parish (unlike England).

New Monkland was a Lanarkshire parish which included Airdrie, and Drummelzier (now spelled Drumelzier) was a Peebleshire parish abt 13 km WSW of Peebles.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NS7567
http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NT1334

One can find old county maps showing parishes at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/gazetteer/

My own preference for removing the ambiguities in county/town names is to use the Chapman county code in my notes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_code

So I would normally write my dad was born in Aberdeen ABD, and my grandad was born in Old Deer ABD. (Old Deer is the parish - he was actually born in a village called Mintlaw Station - my dad was born in St Machar parish).

Cath, Sorcha & MVNG.
Thanks so much for your explanations and sites to contact.
Really appreciate the time and input.
Thanks - Lynda.