The 19th century British Surname Atlas on CD gives the number of each surname found in the 1881 census. When interrogating it I found that for my surname Griffiths there were 49,010 entries for Great Britain. When I switch to the Poor Law Union Listing, I found that 48,831 of the Griffiths surname were listed under that heading. On the face of things this means that only 180 people named Griffiths were not in workhouses. Can this be right? I'm sure there is a simple answer but my enquiries of Archer Software http://www.archersoftware.co.uk/about.htm who produced the data have not yet replied to my email. If I get a reply I'll post it on. ~~ Keith Griffiths Elmsted, Kent

From: Keith Griffiths <<The 19th century British Surname Atlas on CD gives the number of each surname found in the 1881 census. When interrogating it I found that for my surname Griffiths there were 49,010 entries for Great Britain. When I switch to the Poor Law Union Listing, I found that 48,831 of the Griffiths surname were listed under that heading. On the face of things this means that only 180 people named Griffiths were not in workhouses. Can this be right?>> Hello Keith, The answer is that there were 49,010 Griffiths in England/Wales and Scotland, but only 48,831 of them in England/Wales alone (without Scotland) - the missing 180 were in Scotland. The Poor Law Union option is not a list of people in workhouses - it is everybody on the census grouped by Union, rather than by County. The Scottish data cannot be grouped by Union, so is excluded in that option. If you look at the accompanying distribution map to the right all will become clear. The Surname Atlas CD is an excellent tool, isn't it? (And also an excellent toy - when I'm bored I often play around with it for a bit.) Matt Tompkins

<<The answer is that there were 49,010 Griffiths in England/Wales and Scotland, but only 48,831 of them in England/Wales alone (without Scotland) - the missing 179 [corrected] were in Scotland.>> 69 in Lanarkshire 29 in Midlothian 14 in Ayrshire 11 in Kirkcudbrightshire 10 in Renfrewshire 10 in Roxburghshire 8 in Fifeshire 7 in Stirlingshire 5 in Argyllshire 4 in Aberdeenshire 4 in Angus 2 in Perthshire 2 in Inverness 1 in Dunbartonshire 1 in Moray 1 in Dumfriesshire 1 in Berwickshire 179 total The great advantage of being able to switch to Poor Law Union view is that you get a much more focussed distribution. For example, if you group them by County there appear to be unusually large numbers of Griffiths in Surrey (822) and Kent (510), but when you group them by Union you discover that they were nearly all living in the London suburbs, leaving only a handful in the rest of Surrey and Kent. In fact that is one of the great weaknesses of the CD, I think - if only it were possible to carve the various metropolises out of their surrounding counties, you'd get much more useful distribution maps at the county level. Matt

I'm not sure how you would define a London suburb in 1881? If you look at houses, I suspect that quite a lot would have been built later than this and that building development may have taken place more around the turn of the century. I have nothing to base this on though, apart from the fact that I was brought up in a suburb that would have come under Kent administration and this house was built in 1900. It was one of three semis that were show houses for the whole street, yet to be built. I was also told by one of my school teachers that she had spoken to an old man who could remember when our school was corn fields. This had been built in the 1890s as a board school. Audrey ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tompkins, M.L.L." <mllt1@leicester.ac.uk> To: "Old English mailing list" <OLD-ENGLISH@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 11:16 AM Subject: Re: [OEL] Surname Atlas > <<The answer is that there were 49,010 Griffiths in England/Wales and > Scotland, but only 48,831 of them in England/Wales alone (without > Scotland) - the missing 179 [corrected] were in Scotland.>> > > 69 in Lanarkshire > 29 in Midlothian > 14 in Ayrshire > 11 in Kirkcudbrightshire > 10 in Renfrewshire > 10 in Roxburghshire > 8 in Fifeshire > 7 in Stirlingshire > 5 in Argyllshire > 4 in Aberdeenshire > 4 in Angus > 2 in Perthshire > 2 in Inverness > 1 in Dunbartonshire > 1 in Moray > 1 in Dumfriesshire > 1 in Berwickshire > > 179 total > > The great advantage of being able to switch to Poor Law Union view is that > you get a much more focussed distribution. For example, if you group them > by County there appear to be unusually large numbers of Griffiths in > Surrey (822) and Kent (510), but when you group them by Union you > discover that they were nearly all living in the London suburbs, leaving > only a handful in the rest of Surrey and Kent. > > In fact that is one of the great weaknesses of the CD, I think - if only > it were possible to carve the various metropolises out of their > surrounding counties, you'd get much more useful distribution maps at the > county level. > > Matt > > > > > ==================================== > WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ > ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > -- > Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.5/147 - Release Date: 24/10/2005 > >