One Name Studies Resources

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Surname/tag: One Name Study

This page is intended to collate resources that could help people who coordinate or contribute to One Name Studies. If you have any additional resources to add, please add them in the comment box or edit this page directly.

Contents 1 One Name Studies on Wikitree 2 Resources 2.1 Surname origin 2.2 Distribution 2.3 DNA

One Name Studies on Wikitree

Full details on how to create, contribute and coordinate a One Name Study on WikiTree is explained at Project:One Name Studies. It is also worth referring to Space:One Name Studies FAQ Page.

Resources

Note: Ideally this page would cover a global perspective but at present it is very focussed on Britain. If you are able to extend it to be more representative, please provide more resources either in the comments below or by editing this page. Thanks!

Surname origin

Hereditary last names originated in different countries in different time periods.

Within England, the following quote could be copied and pasted directly to explain the origin:

Hereditary surnames were first introduced into England in baronial families following the Norman Conquest in 1066. The knightly class began to adopt hereditary names in the 1100s, filtering down to most English families by 1400, although their form was still evolving.<ref>Family Names and Family History, D. Hey, 2000, pp. 31, 51-53 (not available online)</ref>

Within Ireland, the following quote could be copied into relevant One Name Studies:

Hereditary surnames came into use in Ireland in teh period from around 950 to 1300. They were generally formed from the names of ancestors preceeded by 'Mac' (son of) or 'O'/'Ua' (literally grandson of). Surnames were frequently formed not just from the name of the ancestor but also from some other designation, such as their rank, trade or occupation.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/irishnamessurnam00woul/page/15/mode/1up Irish names and surnames], Woulfe, Patrick, 1922, p15</ref>

The original meaning of surnames are mainly derived from a location (e.g. Paisley, from the town of that name in Scotland), a relationship (e.g. Richardson, meaning "son of Richard"), an occupation (e.g. Cooper, a person who makes barrels) or a nickname (e.g. Lamb, suggesting meekness. These sites include details of surname origins:

• England (18,000): A Dictionary of English Surnames, Reaney & Wilson, 1991
• West Yorkshire, England (2,313): Surnames and Society in West Yorkshire: An Analysis of Names in the Wakefield Court Rolls, 1274-1352, Wendi Dunlap, 2010
• Germany (52,000): Digital Digitales Familiennamenwörterbuch Deutschlands (Dictionary of Surnames in Germany), Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz
• Global (49,000): SurnameDB, Name Origin Research
• Global (n/k): Ancestry.com surname information
• Netherlands (320,000): Nederlandse Familienamenbank (Database of Surnames in The Netherlands), Central Bureau of Genealogy, The Hague

Distribution

Analysing the distribution of surnames, either currently or at a specific point in time, can give important clues as to the geographical origin of the family and show how different branches of a family may be linked to each other.

Various sites give analysis of distributions:

• Ancestry.com - England & Wales, 1891; Scotland (each decade 1841-1901); Canada 1911; United States (1840, 1880, 1920)
• Forebears has data on 43 different countries, mostly for 2014 but also shows England and Scotland in 1881 and United States in 1880

FamilySearch has complete census data available for various countries including England and the United States. It is possible to search for a particular surname and download the results into a spreadsheet, which can then be analysed by location.

DNA

Generally speaking, since the establishment of hereditary surnames, both surname and Y-DNA have been passed from father to son; therefore there is often a close correspondence between Y-DNA Haplogroups and certain surnames, particuylarly where they are single-origin surnames. For example, 87% of Attenboroughs are E1b1b1, 79% of Swindlehursts are R1a and 95% of Herricks are haplogroup I.^[1]

There are a number of key mechanisms that can happen to interrupt this transmission, which would result in men sharing the same single-origin surname nonetheless having different Y-DNA. These "non paternal events" include:

• Approx. 5% of births were illegitimate, and such children would often take their mother's surname.^[2] Note, however, that illegitimate children, in general, were less like to prosper or inherit property, and would, on average, have fewer descendents. This reduces the impact of this effect.
• If fathers died leaving young children, their mother would often remarry; the original children sometimes took the new husband's surname
• In some cultures, particularly in northern England and Scotland, people often took the surnames of their feudal overlords or clan leaders and apprentices also took the surnames of their masters;
• Some surnames had multiple origins; for instance the Banbury surname is based either on the town of that name in Oxfordshire or the vill of "Bambury" in Okehampton, West Devon,^[3] which seems a likely origin for the more common Devon & Cornwall occurrence of that surname