Hi Cornelia Just to illustrate Steve's comments: The earliest forms of Tindall in my ancestry are "De (Of) Tyndale" or Tynedale, reflecting settlement in the valley of the River Tyne, East Lothian, Scotland, by Normans (Scandanavians who had previously conquered Normandy, France) after they subdued England in 1066. All the variants used since can probably be found in modern Essex and cetainly in the U.S. Peter Moll Tortola, British Virgin Islands From: Steve <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Re: [Ess] how do I find out... Hi Cornelia, I don't think that you can, especially not when the USA comes into the equation as during the days of mass immigration people often changed their name, or had it changed for them, for "difficult" eastern European names to similar sounding English ones. Also, given the vagaries of writing and spelling in the past, some Tindalls could have started out as Tynedalls or Tynedale. Also some people will have adopted the name because it is where they came from. Regards Steve On 10/05/2011 22:41, [email protected] wrote: how do I find out whether a surname is one where everyone with that surname is descended from one individual? the name of interest is Tindall, and I think it might be one of those names, but I don't know for certain. does anyone know? or know how to find out? I'm dna testing, and have matched with someone who has Tindalls in America, but my Tindall cousins are in England. if I could be certain that all Tindalls are related, I could help them with connecting to earlier branches of their tree, whether or not that's the branch we connect on. thank you for your help. Cornelia