Well off on my travels for a few days. As some of you know I'm off up to the Flamborough area to see Puffins(!!) and the like. Saturday I'm doing a boat trip at 4:30pm from Bridlington harbour with 5 others and Sunday a walk along Bempton Cliffs with I know not how many.
I'll be back Monday and hopefully there'll be some pics to post.
Apparently the website UCL Surname Locations
is the result of "A recent research project based at University College London (UCL) has investigated the distribution of surnames in Great Britain, both current and historic, in order to understand patterns of regional economic development, population movement and cultural identity. This website allows users to search the databases that we have created, and to trace the geography and history of their family names."
Stick your surname in and you can see how people with your surname have distributed since 1881 throughout the country. I would like to do mine but there were <100 people with my name on the electoral register in 1998. So I chose the name of my mate Dave as being suitably odd.
Firstly it gives a name classification of "Imported From Abroad; Other South Asian; South Indian & Sri Lankan"
In 1881 Dave's name was heavily located around the wash with a pocket in London and one in the North and 69 people on the 1881 list. By 1998 there were 172 people liste, though still heaviest around the wash the concentration isn't so high. The Northern deboo's seem to have vanished and a new group in the Glocestershire/Wiltshire area has developed.
My Mother's maiden name was heavily located in Essex (no surprise there and especially South Essex) and though still are it seems the strongest concentration is on the Essex/Herts border where mu comes from. Curiously her branch ofthe family have lived in that area for over 200 years! There were 132 names in 1881 and 362 now.
Clicking on the Frequency and ethnicity link is quite interesting!
2 comments:
You've got me at it now, I have been playing with the surname search for ages, putting in the names of all my family members, people I know etc.... Fascinating stuff. I am more interested in the 1891 date than current, and no surprises that my dad's side of the family were virtually all in Scotland (Morton) and my mum's were in Kent/Sussex, (Goodsell) My mum's brother has gone intensively into the family's ancestry, having done numerous trips to London to delve, but was a bit disappointed to find they were all farm workers and peasants! I started to do a family tree on Genes Reunited, but seem to have lost the enthusiasm really, it's hard to get back more than a couple of generations with us lot without hitting a brick wall. (and I'm too tight to pay for searches)
Have a good trip, lucky thing, say hello to the puffins for me. :o)
I love that Surname thing. I love it so much I am going to steal it and use it as my own
Aahahahaaahhaaa!( that was an evil laugh)
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