Where In The World Is Your Surname?
I saw this cool new tool over at Family History for Beginners called World Names Profiler, and being the sucker inquisitive person that I am for genealogy research, I gave it a whirl. The concept of the search for your surname is very well written about at Family History for Beginners, so I won’t belabor it here, but the short version is that if you want to know where in the world your surname is distributed, all you have to do is type it in on the World Names Profiler page.
In our family, we have avery unusual surname: Osgathorpe. It is the name of one of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, and I have proof of that because I have compiled a preponderance of evidence which includes photo-copies of Richard Osgathorpe’s RW pay vouchers. But, we have a problem with tracing his line back to England, where he reportedly originated. And, to confuse things further, after being in the continental US for a couple hundred years, the family members have changed the spelling of the name, and the pronunciation. Some go by Osgatharp; some by Osgathorp, and some by Osgathorpe. I believe the name originated as Osgathorpe, and became “Americanized” over time and through other regional accents being applied.
When I first began researching my family tree, a cousin had written in a book that the name was Oglethorpe. Wishful thinking on her part, and I had to send her lots of documentation to change her mind. Her reaction when I did so? She said, “that it was what her mother had always told her“. Hmmm….Lesson for today. Never go by hearsay.
Today, I put the name Osgathorpe into the World Names Profiler search and came up with these results. Some were surprising, some not so much. I knew that some of my Osgatharp cousins lived in Tennessee and Indiana, but it was surprising to me at how many live in New Zealand. All of this doesn’t bring me any closer to finding Richard Osgathorpe in any British records, but it did narrow it down to certain districts in the UK where the surname is found abundantly.
When I get rich, I will hire someone and have them track down all my dead ends. For now though, it’s fun to use tools like World Names Profiler. Try it, and let me know what you find! My results are below.
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Filed under: Genealogy
This is very cool. I spent half an hour playing with it. I think it could even come in handy at work…”I went over your account, Mr. Leitch… Hmmm… Leitch…. That’s Scottish, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is! You’re a very bright lad. Here’s a thousand dollar tip!”
I had no idea name profilers existed. Now I’ve got another excuse to avoid work!
@Roy–I checked out your site, and the work you do is truly exceptional, although I hope I don’t need your services for a very long time to come.
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This sounds fascinating and I intend to try it out. Unfortunately, all of my family names are rather mundane as I researched them over ten years ago for a genealogical history I did for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Major names are Becker, Mattley, Sheffield, and Haskell–most all from England.
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