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The historic county of Berkshire was situated
to the west of London and stretches from Windsor in the east to
Newbury in the west and Abingdon in the north. Part of the north of the
county consisting of Abingdon and the surrounding area (known as the
Vale of the White Horse) was transferred to Buckinghamshire in the 1974
reorganisation, but Berkshire also gained Slough and the surrounding
area from Buckinghamshire at that time. Today, Berkshire County Council
no longer exists as an administrative body, after six separate unitary
authorities were created in the 1990s (Bracknell Forest, Reading,
Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham).
The county town was Reading and today the six unitary authorities
jointly support the Royal Berkshire
Archives which are located in
Reading.
Originally Berkshire was almost entirely rural, and your Berkshire
ancestors are very likely to be connected to agriculture in some way,
whether as farmers and landowners or as agricultural labourers. With
the coming of the railways in the nineteenth century, many workers also
went to work in London or other towns and cities.
The map
below shows the original boundaries of Berkshire before the various
reorganisations and includes the railway lines. Click on the map itself
for a larger version.
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