On 21 Feb 2010 at 12:58, SALLY-ANN GARRETT wrote: > Hi Lesley et Al > > I think we need to ignore the rudeness in Roy's email - he may be a > professional, but he seems to be sadly lacking in emotional > intelligence. His advice is possibly helpful if you can get past the > opening remarks. > > In addition, I have looked up several sites in the past that can > provide the distribution of a surname, for example: > > http://www.rootsmap.com/ > > http://www.ukgenealogy.co.uk/resources/surname-maps.htm > > http://www.rootsuk.com/help/bmd_map.php > > http://www.britishsurnames.co.uk/help.php > When a questioner confesses herself that she hadn't explained her question very well, I tend to think she is inviting a jokey riposte, which is all that my comment was meant to be. Still, some people seem determined to find offence wherever they can, being somewhat thin-skinned and hypersensitive. However, that said, I do believe that too much concern is expressed about surname meanings and their distribution. Let's all remember that so many surnames have changed, sometimes almost beyond recognition, since they came into existence in medieval times. Also, most names have a number of variants - some of them numbered in scores - and it is often hard to know what the original name was. For instance, one of my own ancestral families called variously YELLOW, YELLOWLEY or YALLOW/YALLOWLEY appear in no fewer than 15 variants in the registers of just a couple of Yorkshire parishes. Widespread illiteracy before the 20th century meant that people rarely had to give or write their names and many hadn't the remotest idea how their surname was spelt, so left it to the vicar, parish clerk or registrar. Consequently, a change of official could lead to different variants appearing. I have even seen a surname spelt more than one way in the SAME document! There are other reasons why a name got changed, sometimes stemming from a desire to hide from the law and the authorities or to inherit a title or property, a surname change being part of a condition of a will. I tend to take even the reputable surname dictionaries with a pinch of salt sometimes. Some of their definitions are, at best, guesses based on the etymology of a name and NOT on original research in records. As a classic example, Reaney & Wilson in A Dictionary of English Surnames claim that the common northern surname SHACKLETON derives from a place in North Yorkshire called Scackleton. I am quite certain this is nonsense, since surname distribution maps and parish records show it to be overwhelmingly a name of the West Riding - there are very few Shackletons in North Yorkshire - and it derives from a hamlet or single farmstead at a place called Shackletonstall in the Calder Valley, near Hebden Bridge. I am a devotee of the theories of Dr George Redmonds, possibly the world's leading surname expert and certainly on Yorkshire surnames. I advise everyone to read at least one of his books if you are really interested in the history of surnames. Redmonds believes that each and EVERY surname of an individual is unique in itself, i.e. one Smith had a different origin to every other Smith, putting the theory at its simplest. He also believes you can only truly trace the true origins if you can trace an individual right back in the records to the original holder - and very few of us can do that! Thus, I find all talk about surnames and their origins to be, at best, speculative and a matter of interpretation. Surname maps certainly can give a clue to the origins of a name - especially those locative names derived from places - but we shouldn't get too carried away by them. -- 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