General Chat

Site claims to guess where your family originates - and it reveals how common your name is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3470807/Where-surname-Website-claims-guess-family-originates-reveals-common-is.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

Pretty accurate with my surname.... :-)

Not working :-S

Try http://named.publicprofiler.org/ which was linked from the article.
Its difficult to see the cursor as it's hidden at the far left of the box to type in.

The distribution of my maiden name is different to expected. Perhaps they've all moved from 19th C Essex ;-)

not working here either

blank space, but can't get the cursor on it...... which means there's a curser here :-0

'No data' :-0

Totally out for my family name. Apparently it is most prevalent in an area in the North of England.

Way out - said northern Ireland - it is manx and actually traced back to Viking settler.

That was interesting - I put in my maiden name. According to this, mostly from Cornwall. A few in Dorset, Sussex and Hampshire.
The name originally was clustered in Yorkshire and Stalbridge in Dorset. Latterly, one family lived in Portsmouth, my dad and brother in Southampton, another family lived in W Sussex, and when my gran married him, in Cornwall. I also know a family lived in Winchester...but that's one or two families in those areas in recent times, hardly the 'origin' of the name!!,

When I put in 'Baggott' - Historically a Midlands name, (around Birmingham) with a small 'faction' in Suffolk,(my lot) the main cluster appeared to be in Newbury, with a (correct) small contingent in Suffolk !!

It seems to show where the incumbents of the name moved to, rather than where they originated.

It worked....... sort of....... my maiden name .... the Lothians.

I've confused them, as they asked for a postcode........ wonder if they'll work out that I'm in Australia. :-D

DH's surname........ about 3/4 of England covered, with a big red blob over Cornwall...... that's where DH's great-grandfather was born, he emigrated to Oz.

Very poor for my maiden name.

My maiden name and other family names are very common so there wasn't much to learn there but I put in great grandpa's name which is uncommon. It showed a very high incidence of the name in Wales with a small cluster right in the North East of England. Odd. In all my years of researching all sorts of records I have never come across the name in these areas. They are mostly around London (my family), with another grouping in Sussex and just a few a Devon.

My Mother's maiden name......... mostly in Aberdeen!

That's funny...... there are loads of them in Renfrewshire.

:-S

I don't think I'll bother looking for "Smith" :-D

The initial link worked. The heat map shows my name as primarily in the north east & north west, which is correct.

Some years ago I recall getting a printout from a website that had analysed one census. I am wondering if this program is derived from an analysis of census returns? BUT - having also put in the maiden name of a grandmother and got "NO DATA" I am not so sure. Not a common surname, but there were plenty of them in the south west.

I've got a very common maiden name but they where spot on we did come from Berkshire but gg grandad moved to Ealing and that's were most of the Wells's were born. My married name was way out though.

not working for me - put in maiden name, married name, maternal line and paternal line - no answer :-(

No data for mine but then my paternal grandfather was German

Loads though for the anglized version

all I got was . no data ,for the name mackellow . for hubbys name green , they were everywhere ,but mostly in the midlands .

Interesting.
My 3xg grandmother´s surname was Mirehouse.
I am reliably informed that the surname is uncommon & can be traced back to Cumberland in the time of Edward the Confessor.
I have seen the original homestead, Miresyke near Loweswater.
Needless to say, this resulted in "No Data".

Spot on for my maiden name......easier to research when I was born and raised in the very same county :-D