Surname mapping site using old & new population stats

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smcarberry
Posts: 1281
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 4:31 pm
Location: USA

Surname mapping site using old & new population stats

Post by smcarberry » Mon Oct 22, 2018 11:29 am

This is a site recommended by my fellow genealogists doing genetic genealogy: https://forebears.io/surnames

It has some quirks in missing connections between surname spellings, which I found by inputting one of my family's surnames, which is Marseau, Marso, and Marson, treated as 3 separate surnames on this site. Similarly, while some surname descriptions refer to widely separate geographical sources for the same modern spelling of a name, deeper history can be lacking, as for the Carberry name being used by both a native Irish sept and adopted by a Anglo-Norman family after acquiring land in the Baronies of Carbery, Cork. What I liked was the quantitative approach to which countries ended up with the most members of which Irish families. Some families definitely went mainly to the U.S. rather than Australia.

Note that population statistics exist for both 2014 and either 1880 or 1881, depending on which country is involved. What I saw for the names I inputted is that far fewer went to Scotland and Canada than I had thought, at least looking at 2014 numbers (I know that a further emigration from Canada to the U.S. was significant in the 1800s). Then there are some surnames whose overall numbers are staggering, like Driscoll. I could have guessed that for Ryan, Murphy, etc.

This is a quick resource for surname origins, which for the Irish usually includes info from MacLysaght.

Sorry but at this time I can't post any attachments - "board attachment quota has been reached." Maybe I can later come back and edit this posting to do so.

Have fun,
Sharon C.

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