Genealogy Chat

Thanks Ray, yes, 'As heard' obviously produced a lot of variations - when my great-aunt died in Cheltenham and her sister gave the name McMeeking it was recorded as 'McMichum'! I'll have to try the Soundex. There are 55 different spellings in the OPRs for Wigtownshire alone, plus several more in Kirkcudbrightshire. Liz

I feel part of a threatened species now - do you reckon I could get grants to nurture me?

In reply to Liz re name variations. Going back over the years, when many people could not read, or write, a name would be entered in, say, a parish register, or census return 'as heard'. Over the years these spellings became the known variants. In our case main spelling is Whincup, but also includes Whincop, Wincup, Winkup etc. See also Olde Crone's list under this thread for variations on his name. You can also see variations of spelling by using 'soundex' on search of BMD indexes etc. Hope this answers your query Ray Whincup

So I get count 235 Ranking 19000 and count 908 ranking 7147 Can someone translate please? Surely that doesnt mean there are only 235 of us??

Ah - Ray - Where did you find the number of name variations and which areas they come from? - I'm very thick at this, I can't see anything else to click on! Liz

We Mardel-Ferreiras (official name!) only just scrape into the list with 6 names making it the 203,151st. Most of the family (in UK since 1860s) have dropped the second half (the Portuguese equivalent of Smith) as no one can spell it! My maiden name McMeeking appears 131 times making it the 27,909th - but then there are around 70 different ways of spelling it which makes searching hard work! Then there are the Joneses and the Powells .............. ! Liz

My posting of The ONS statistics list of 2002 has raised a few interesting points. As we all know we have to contend with variant spellings of a surname, but with this easy to use surname finder you can quickly see how many known variants of your surname still existed in the year 2002. The introduction of on-line census this year enables total numbers of a particular surname to be compared in each 10 year period. I wonder if anyone else has made statistical comparisons with their surname being researched? The totals shown below for the surname Whincup include variants. 1851 370. 1861. 465 1871. 564. 1881. 633. 1891 618. 1901 827 The total for 2002 including variants is circa 800, indicating, as regards our surname almost the same figure as 1901. If anyone else has done similar statistical checks on surnames I would be interested to know if a similar trend is evident. It is also interesting to plot main areas for a surname. In our case largest group originates in Yorkshire, with another large group Suffolk/Norfolk based. Ray Whincup

Good site. One of my husband's names is Jarnell. This shows as 64, ranking = 43667 but I still have trouble finding them all. Jennie

I married a Smith, but haven't any in my own tree - got a line of Blacksmith's though, they're quite rare. I've also got Browns married to Wilsons and 5 separate branches of Clarks/Clarkes. Helen

How exciting I must have most of the 276.5 people since the 16th century with the surname Sudder in my tree already. Only a couple more to find then - lol! Where do I find the 0.5 though?

Raymond Only 315th on the list? You do surprise me! Ah, I see you have missed out the Holdings/Houldens/Houldings/Holdan/Holdane/Haldane/Holdin/Holdon/Holdoun.......and Ololoden! That would explain it then. Olde Crone

I have Williams and Evans in my tree, and my husband's lot (the Welsh side) have Williams, Evans and Jones. But I am very lucky that I have two great-great-grandparents, whose family bible got me going in tracing my tree, whose surnames were Chowns and Smoothy, which are relatively rare. Mind you, Chowns is also recorded as Chown, Chouns, Chounes, Chownes, Chowndes and poor gt gt grandma is on 1851 census as Thomas!!!!. Smoothy has been recorded as Smithee, Smothey, Timothy and Lenorthey. So having a less common name is not necessarily an advantage. And what fun I am having with my Mealing/Maling/Melins/Mellins lot!!! nell

Considering some of my names BAMBERRY 24 = 80577 CLEPHANE 87 = 36122 NORVAL 230 = 19486 HOLLINSWORTH 89 = 35604 FORGIE 139 = 26873 You think i'd be able to find some of them Mhairi

This surname counter is both interesting, and useful. Posted it very late last night. I am sure more of you will find it useful. Link shown about 5th item Ray Whincup

My Maiden name Bayton - 300, Ranking -16378 So I must be quite lucky then!! I have started recording every Bayton I come across as I go. Tammy

mentioning spelling just reminded me - my 'One Name Study' (of my father's surname above) would be great if the Ancestry transcribers could READ, I've had no end of variations through the censuses, and not all of them were down to enumerators who couldn't understand the local accent. I did print off a list though, and tried to establish where everyone came from! As I've mentioned in other threads, most of that surname in Northumberland in the 19th C can be traced directly to my 3xgt grandfather.

One of my hubby's families is now extinct!!! (I think the spelling was too difficult)

Well my surname (Platell) ranks #127230 (12 individuals!). I know them all - they're all on my tree already. Not much point in doing a one-name study there! Richard

YEP! There they are: Edwards is 17th, Thompson is 13th and the other most common name I have been looking for, Wright, is 13th. Now wonder I have been going slowly insane the past few months. Then they all named their children John and Mary Ann, with a few Williams and Eliza's for good measure!

AND the millions of EDWARDS and THOMPSONS should be up there somewhere too!!!