Genealogy Chat

Good site. One of my husband's names is Jarnell. This shows as 64, ranking = 43667 but I still have trouble finding them all. Jennie

My posting of The ONS statistics list of 2002 has raised a few interesting points. As we all know we have to contend with variant spellings of a surname, but with this easy to use surname finder you can quickly see how many known variants of your surname still existed in the year 2002. The introduction of on-line census this year enables total numbers of a particular surname to be compared in each 10 year period. I wonder if anyone else has made statistical comparisons with their surname being researched? The totals shown below for the surname Whincup include variants. 1851 370. 1861. 465 1871. 564. 1881. 633. 1891 618. 1901 827 The total for 2002 including variants is circa 800, indicating, as regards our surname almost the same figure as 1901. If anyone else has done similar statistical checks on surnames I would be interested to know if a similar trend is evident. It is also interesting to plot main areas for a surname. In our case largest group originates in Yorkshire, with another large group Suffolk/Norfolk based. Ray Whincup

We Mardel-Ferreiras (official name!) only just scrape into the list with 6 names making it the 203,151st. Most of the family (in UK since 1860s) have dropped the second half (the Portuguese equivalent of Smith) as no one can spell it! My maiden name McMeeking appears 131 times making it the 27,909th - but then there are around 70 different ways of spelling it which makes searching hard work! Then there are the Joneses and the Powells .............. ! Liz

Ah - Ray - Where did you find the number of name variations and which areas they come from? - I'm very thick at this, I can't see anything else to click on! Liz

So I get count 235 Ranking 19000 and count 908 ranking 7147 Can someone translate please? Surely that doesnt mean there are only 235 of us??

In reply to Liz re name variations. Going back over the years, when many people could not read, or write, a name would be entered in, say, a parish register, or census return 'as heard'. Over the years these spellings became the known variants. In our case main spelling is Whincup, but also includes Whincop, Wincup, Winkup etc. See also Olde Crone's list under this thread for variations on his name. You can also see variations of spelling by using 'soundex' on search of BMD indexes etc. Hope this answers your query Ray Whincup

I feel part of a threatened species now - do you reckon I could get grants to nurture me?

Thanks Ray, yes, 'As heard' obviously produced a lot of variations - when my great-aunt died in Cheltenham and her sister gave the name McMeeking it was recorded as 'McMichum'! I'll have to try the Soundex. There are 55 different spellings in the OPRs for Wigtownshire alone, plus several more in Kirkcudbrightshire. Liz