Family Surname Searches

You may want to use surnames in one of two main ways. One name studies are popular, and these relate to a single surname usually on a worldwide or countrywide basis, regardless of individual family lines. If your name is uncommon, this can be an interesting kind of research and a fascinating hobby in its own right. The other use of surnames is in the course of genealogy and family history research when the surname is your prime focus of interest. This may be a single paternal or maternal name tracked as far back as you can, or one or more of the many names you can trace by following marriage lines.

Surnames on the Internet

Surname resources are at soc.genealogy.surnames.britain and soc.genealogysurnames.ireland. GenServ is a volunteer-operated collection of family history GEDCOM files, from which you can have a trial 60-day access if you submit your own files - a mutual, or reciprocal resource. Rootsweb comprises a community of thousands of web pages where you can search for names. There are links to information on getting started, family history centres, the ROOTS-L mailing lists and genealogy-related files you can request by email and lots more. For example an article entitled Computers: Changing the Face of Genealogy (relatively old [1989] but valid). Surname Helper lets you search for a surname linking you to its website source anywhere in the world, such as a UK county GenWeb project. The World GenWeb project is a non-profit, volunteer based project collecting genealogical data around the world. FreeREG provides details of baptisms, marriages and burial records. It is part of the FreeUKGEN project and companion to FreeBDM. These are just being developed at the time of writing. You can also browse or search for surnames on ancestralfindings.com, where you will get email addresses of the people doing the research.