National Trust Names

Interesting -- DH's name was most common in the Midlands in 1881 which is where he is from.  We always thought there was a Cornish connection since it is a place name in Cornwall.  Well, maybe way back.
Mine was found mostly in the Portsmouth, Isle of Wight, Bristol/Bath, Derby/Notts areas in 1881.  Much more scattered in the 1998 map.
Wish the maps covered N. Ireland as that is where my mother's family was from.

That is fascinating!  I have found out that there were many Sharkey's in the UK in 1880, but my mum's maiden name doesn't appear, which is strange as she is the English one!


Vicky

Wish the maps covered N. Ireland as that is where my mother's family was from.

Apparently the UCL dept has recently launched a "World Names" profiler.  I just briefly checked out a couple names on it and it seems pretty good.

http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/


It says this on the UCL site, but it was running OK for me:

"On Friday 29th August we launched our worldnames mapping service. This has been picked up by a great number of news outlets all round the world. Over the weekend we have had around 250,000 people visit the site which has unfortunately caused a number of technical errors to emerge. We are busy fixing the site and hope to have it back up to full speed soon! Thank you for your patience."

I just tried the "World Names" profiler.  The only place in the world with my (unmarried) surname at a high or medium concentration is Japan.  I'm not Japanese and there is no Japanese in my family (as far as I know). 

We always assumed our surname was shortened from something longer (at Ellis Island) when my great-grandfather came over from what was then shifting border of Poland and Russia.  One never knows, however way back in time perhaps (I and my dad's side of the family all have dark hair and high cheekbones...)

edited to add:  I just noticed that my name also appears with medium frequency in Slovenia which is probably more likely where my relatives come from.

Ah, my fairly unusual maiden name is on the world names profiler.  One of the "most frequent" places is Texas, United States, and zooming in on the map, the sole concentration is in the county where I grew up.  What a coincidence (except definitely not, haha!)  The other more frequent places are the UK & Canada (makes sense, I'm from the Caribbean and those countries have loads of Caribbean people.) and France (which also makes sense, because it's a French name.) The profiler says my maiden name is Jewish though, which is weird.

That is more accurate than the National Trust one, but slightly out of date.

I can tell, as my mum's crazy maiden name draws a blank in the NT database, but this one shows my uncle and my grandparents (who died about 15 years ago).

And someone in Pennsylvania!!!

Vicky

So Andee is Japanese and she never knew it, Springhaze is Jewish and she never knew it, and Vicky has one long lost relative in Pennsylvania?   

Andee I think you should go on "Who do you think you are?"  They'd figure out that Russian/Polish/Japanese connection in no time and I bet it would be an interesting story!

*Edited to say that in my joking around that might have sounded flippant or offensive. Sorry.  That wasn't my intention.  I just love hearing about interesting or unexpected facts in people's genealogies.  Andee, you're probably right that you relatives came from Slovenia.  I still think it would be really cool to have a Japanese ancestor though, so as long as you don't know for sure it might be a good excuse to visit Japan. 

Ah, my fairly unusual maiden name is on the world names profiler.  One of the "most frequent" places is Texas, United States, and zooming in on the map, the sole concentration is in the county where I grew up.  What a coincidence (except definitely not, haha!)

My maiden name is a very unusual Swedish name.  It exists almost exclusively in Sweden with the exception of very small pockets in three other countries including the US.  None in Britain.  Two names are listed as the most common forenames for my maiden name.  One of them is my Dad's name!  The biggest concentrations of my name in the US are in the cities where my family members live.

My last name is unique - my grandfather made it up! So using the world profiler site, it only exists in America (even though I've been in the UK for 8 years it didn't pick that up). I know exactly which family members are in each state the name shows up in!

My FIL was shocked to see how many with his last name are in Canada and the US. He thought he was a bit more unique.

Andee I think you should go on "Who do you think you are?"  They'd figure out that Russian/Polish/Japanese connection in no time and I bet it would be an interesting story!

*Edited to say that in my joking around that might have sounded flippant or offensive. Sorry.  That wasn't my intention.  I just love hearing about interesting or unexpected facts in people's genealogies.  Andee, you're probably right that you relatives came from Slovenia.  I still think it would be really cool to have a Japanese ancestor though, so as long as you don't know for sure it might be a good excuse to visit Japan. 

Oh, I didn't think you were being flippant at all!    It is fascinating and I've often thought of getting that DNA testing thing done where they trace back your heritage to the very beginning or something like that.  I'm not sure though if it is expensive or not.  I would love to see what / who lies in my past!