I am at the "brick wall" stage in my research so I am also interested in the message below, but my question would be "till what date did this happen?" Jim Fergus wrote: > Have been advised that tenant farmers, in the old day, did not have, or > use, a personal surname that they used the surname of the laird, or > property owner on whose land they worked. > -- Cheers Allan.... A contented user of TMG4, Researching Paterson, Boult, Gee & Loveday. Visit my homepage at http://www.inet.net.nz/~allanp/ & consider signing my guest book