Hi Folks Ever wonder how many people carry the surnames we are looking for? Someone shared a Census Bureau page with me. It is fun to use. For example, I found my Meason line is so rare that I just send an e-mail to any Meason I find on the web. As a result, I have made some useful genealogical contacts. Chases, as you can see, are not as common as Smith (or White), but a lot of Chases are out there. The URL is: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/namesearch.html The site shows the frequency with which a given or surname appeared in a sample of 7.2 million people in 1990. They found 88,799 unique names in that sample. Sampling errors, they say, could be large in extremely rare names. Chase and Chace are not extremely rare. Aalderink was the least frequent in the 7.2 million. Smith was most common. The source: U.S. Census Bureau Here is how the Chase/Chace names came out: Names Search Results ( last ) NAME frequency rank CHASE 0.023 percent 508 out of 88,799 unique names CHACE 0.001 percent 14,957 out of 88,799 unique names I think this means there are about 80,000 Chases in the US. Okay, that is not terribly useful knowledge. Dave White