Searching Surnames
For decades there has been one surefire method for succeeding in genealogical research—communication. Long before the Internet, even before the telephone, successful genealogists knew that good communication skills were necessary to acquire family information, and the family historian would work hard to find and correspond with other individuals who were researching the same family lines.
Now, in the twenty-first century, the concept of correspondence also applies to the Internet. E-mail, message boards, chat rooms, and other virtual meeting spaces make it fast and easy to communicate with researchers whose family lines intersect with our own. But there is still one communication route on the Internet that can be easily overlooked by the beginning researcher—surname lists.
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What Is a Surname List?
Surname lists and surname registers allow researchers to link their contact information with the surnames they're researching, as well as with other information including migration patterns of the family line, the earliest date associated with research on a particular family line, and the latest date associated with that same research. The result is an easily-scanned list that includes contact information for people conducting similar surname research.
This site, like the the most popular surname list, RootsWeb Surname List (RSL), aims at pulling together the millions of surnames submitted by genealogists every day. Each surname entry found in Surname Research links you directly to the submitter of the information and their work on that particular surname.
In addition to this site and RootsWeb, there are other sites where researchers can search for the surnames they are researching, including various GenWeb sites such as www.worldgenweb.org or www.usgenweb.com.
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Anatomy of a Surname
A surname, or family name, can be defined as a legal identification tag which is transmitted by family members from generation to generation. The use of a surname is a comparatively recent phenomenon.1 Surnames were adopted in order to legally distinguish two individuals with the same given name. By surname, we mean a fixed name by which that particular individual is known.2
Different areas of the world adopted surnames at different periods in time. For example, surnames were commonly used two thousand years ago in areas occupied or influenced by the Romans. Other areas of the world were slower to begin using surnames, but they were coming into regular use by the time of the Middle Ages, first by the nobility, then by the gentry. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Ireland was one of the first countries to adopt hereditary surnames, and Irish surnames are found as early as the tenth century.3
Origins of Surnames
Surnames are generally derived from one of four sources: the name of the person's father (patronymic), the person's locality, the person's occupation, or a descriptive nickname for the person. When they were created, they answered one of the following questions: Who is this person's father? Where is this person from? What does this person do for a living? What is his or her most prominent feature?
The patronymic name suggests the name of the father or grandfather by the use of some form of "of." In Ireland, "Mac" means "son of," while "O" means "grandson of." When "d’" or "di" is found in an Italian surname, it signifies "son of." In Czechoslovakia, Pavlov is the "son of Paul." This naming pattern can be seen clearly in Sweden, where each subsequent generation followed suit: Hans Peterson would be the son of Peter; Hans Peterson's son would be called Jan Hansen. (On the female side, the daughter of Hans would be called Hansdotter.) A similar situation can be found in the New World, in naming patterns in Dutch New Amsterdam.4 Some common patronymics are Robertson, Anderson, Williamson, and Johnson.
Place names were often taken as a surname. They were derived from the name of the place where one resided or from a description of the place. Mokotoff is from the Russian village of Mokotow; the Irish Slattery is originally from Ballyslattery in east County Clare. More than half the English surnames used today derive from geographic descriptions, such as Churchill. Various suffixes which indicate a topographical feature are lee (meadow), bank, don (town), field, house, and thorp (village).
Occupations also helped distinguish one person from another. John Miller may have owned the mill in the same town where John Smith was the local blacksmith. Bedell was the policeman of the village; Fletcher was the arrow-maker. You will often find names which describe ancestors' vocations, such as Baker, Shepherd, Carpenter, and Wright.
Sometimes nicknames became surnames. These types of surnames were often used to describe something unusual about an ancestor's physique. Small and Petit are obvious examples, as is Blackbeard.
Notes
1. Fucilla, Joseph Guerin. Our Italian Surnames. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987.
2. Pine, L. G. The Story of Surnames. Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle, 1967.
3. Smith, Elsdon C. The Story of Our Names. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.
4. Bailey, Rosalie Fellows. Dutch Systems in Family Naming: New York, New Jersey. NGS Genealogical Publications No. 12. Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society, 1954.
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