Genealogy Chat

Has anyone tried this site www(.)surnameprofiler(.)org I have been trying to get on it but it's always busy . Wondered if anyone here has had any success Pat

yes read about it in yesterdays paper and every time I get a message saying to try again later . Which I do but without sucess Bren

Thanks Bren thats what I get at least now I know my PC is not playing up Pat

Ive just tried as well and its says to try again later. what is on it by the way? kate

I've just got on and it took me to: http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/default.aspx

I had great fun with that site ..... it is busy but keep pressing the search button and it works in the end...... amazing finds on it! One of my almost-totally-Surrey and Sussex lines in 1881 had heavily colonised the Outer Hebrides by 1989 !!! Fascinating stuff! Only grumble is that it only has common surnames for 1881, many of my (only slightly) unusual ones weren't there at all. Bev x

Just had a quick look ...looks interesting thank you . Val

thank you for this one

Well at least someone has been sucessful I suppose I shall just have to keep trying about 3am I think. Pat

Yes I put a thread on about it last week. Have to say though having looked at it I wondered just how accurate it was. My name Horstead is peculiar to Norfolk and Northampton (havent worked out the connection yet). But there on this site in the 1881 is a whole block in Yorkshire. So I go to the 1881 amazed I hadnt noticed this lot which outweigh my Norfolk group and I think I found just 2 - yes 2 - Horstead families. Now If I just enter my name in Ancestry with no exact first name it brings up hundreds of completely mad soundex matches. I am wondering if these guys have included all soundex matches in a name?? I may actually write to them about this. Or may be someone else already has and they are rethinking? hence no site at mo?

Update, I mailed the producers and received a non-commital reply saying they had used postal areas? I pointed out a large number of my Horsteads were in London by the 1881 but no colour shown on there at all. Whereas only 2 families are in Yorkshire but the map is marked to show this as the highest density of my name!

Bev and Scott - have now worked out why your name seems to have colonised the Hebrides. The system is faulty. They tell me what they have done is look at a name and see what percentage of that name there is in an area in ratio to the local population. Hence, your name of perhaps 4 people in an outer Hebrides Island with 20 people living there, would show up as a 20% of the population which would be higher than say the percentage of your Surrey lot being 2000 names but in an area of 300,000 people. So two families on a Yorkshire moor show up as the most intense population of my name when there are something like over a hundred in London and even more in Norfolk! All in all, pretty useless! I had imagined that they had used actual numbers of people with a surname, not just a percentage of the people in an area.

ive just tried too it cvomes up saying experiencing large volumes of traffic pls try later so i will... tracey

Well do remember if your name is shown as greatest intensity on the Isle of Dogs it may just mean one household!