On 30 Nov 2010 at 9:33, Josephine Jeremiah wrote: > Here are some more surname sites: > > British surnames and surname profiles > > http://www.britishsurnames.co.uk/about.php > > Spatial analysis > > http://spatialanalysis.co.uk/category/surnames/ > If I might offer a word of advice when looking at these or any other surname websites, equally surname dictionaries..... Treat them with caution! By all means regard them as an interesting adjunct to genealogy and family history, entertaining and perhaps even informative - but do not believe or accept as gospel everything they say !!! Yes, they might give you the figures for the respective number of people of a given surname in the 1881 census and today and work out where a particular surname lies in the "batting order", i.e. number of holders in relation to the whole population, but don't necessarily accept the definitions they supply. A particular problem I have encountered in the past with these sites is that names with fewer than 100 occurrences are not included, so that, for me, makes a nonsense of the whole thing since it discounts literally hundreds, if not thousands, of unique or near-unique names. Even the "bible" of printed surname dictionaries, Reaney & Wilson, is inaccurate in some of its definitions, being merely guesses based on etymology. The whole subject of surname meanings is fraught with controversy and uncertainty so far as many names are concerned. I am a devotee of the theories of Dr George Redmonds, probably the leading surname authority (certainly for Yorkshire surnames) who argues that each and every name is unique - i.e. one Smith is different to every other Smith - and you can only truly prove where the name of any individual family originated if you can trace it right back in records to the original holder, which few of us can do. Beyond that, you can only make assumptions based on whether a particular surname is predominant in a certain area, as STOCKDALE and its variants overwhelmingly are in Yorkshire. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE

On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 09:33:10 -0000, Josephine Jeremiah <jojeremiah@dsl.pipex.com> wrote: >> Here are some more surname sites: On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 10:11:56 -0000, Roy Stockdill <roy.stockdill@btinternet.com> wrote: > If I might offer a word of advice when looking at these or any other > surname websites, equally surname dictionaries..... > Treat them with caution! By all means regard them as an interesting > adjunct to genealogy and family history, entertaining and perhaps even > informative - but do not believe or accept as gospel everything they say > !!! You could say the same for all sorts of other sites connected with genealogy and family history research and also for posts on the mailing lists. Mistakes can be made. Now and again I look at various web pages with information on people in my family tree and in my husband's and I am amazed at the mistakes I see. When I first had a web site, I put my family history information on it and people, whom I didn't even know, copied details from it and put the information on other sites. I remember that I had given my grandmother's birthplace as Stone, Gloucestershire, but I should have written Stonehill. Of course, Stone was copied by people who didn't even know my grandmother or me. Stone in Gloucestershire is a long way from Stonehill in Gloucestershire and that initial mistake of mine has multiplied. But back to surname sites -- at least those I found this morning were of some interest to my husband, who professes that he is not interested in anything to do with his family history, yet I caught him having a good look at the surname sites. Josephine -- Josephine Jeremiah www.ianandjo.dsl.pipex.com