Hello friends and cousins, Surf to http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/ and you will see three clickable files. The first one ("dist.all.last") details the distribution of all last names, like Sisson, in the 1990 federal census. The second one ("dist.male.first") does the same thing for men's and boys' first names. I'll let you guess what the third one ("dist.female.first") does. To quote the above site -- Each of the three files, (dist.all.last), (dist. male.first), and (dist female.first) contain four items of data. The four items are: (1). A "Name" (2). Frequency in percent (3). Cumulative Frequency in percent (4). Rank In the file (dist.all.last) one entry appears as: MOORE 0.312 5.312 9 In our Search Area sample, MOORE ranks 9th in terms of frequency. 5.312 percent of the sample population is covered by MOORE and the 8 names occurring more frequently than MOORE. The surname, MOORE, is possessed by 0.312 percent of our population sample. The data is based on the 1990 US Federal Census. Here is the same kind of information regarding the surname Sisson SISSON 0.004 56.480 2867 SISSON ranks 2867th in terms of frequency. 56.480 percent of the sample population is covered by SISSON and the 2867 names occurring more frequently than SISSON. The surname, SISSON, is possessed by 0.004 percent of our population sample. I have figured out a couple more stunning facts -- 43.52 percent of the people have surnames even more rare than SISSON (100% less 56.580%). SISSON is the 2867th surname listed in a grand total of 88799 surnames, so 85932 surnames are even more rare than SISSON. Sharon Miller is going to tell me I have too much time on my hands! <g> David Arne Sisson