Free Surname Profiler

[Paul Wilding]

Not sure if anyone's posted the link before, but UCL department of Geography have got a free Surname Profiler online.

http://www.spatial-literacy.org/uclnames/Surnames.aspx

[Wirral]

Thanks Paul |bowdown|
That site is absloutely brilliant! :) Guess what I'm going to be looking at all day today? ;)

[busyglen]

That is SO interesting. To see the spread of names between 1881 and 1998 is brilliant.
|woohoo|

Glenys

[BeeE586]

Thank you, Paul, yet another excuse for not doing housework. Just put in half a dozen names and already come up with some surprises.

Eileen -- |wave|

[AnnB]

Thanks Paul, but I was going out to do some gardening........ ;)

Best wishes
Ann

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

BooHoo Paul! I clicked on it and got:

Server Application Unavailable

Perhaps we've all swamped the site? :confused:

Oooh Ann ..... Gardening? I'm green with envy! :D

[Linda]

Boohoo! I got the same message Diane!

January 2002 comes to mind ;) Was it that long ago?

Linda

[PamG]

I tried the link about 3 hours ago, and got in okay. But when I tried to click on a search I got a runtime error. I sent the runtime error message to one of the website authors, and he's read it. So perhaps they're fixing the problem.

Pam
London, Canada

[Sharron]

As this link was also posted on another forum, I suspect Diane is right and the poor little server has just up and died!

[Brian]

There was also an article in The Eastern Daily Press today (and probably other newspapers) so that would not have helped. I tried at various times during the day but with no luck - as yet.

[HelenVSmith]

And it is being heavily discussed on the GOONS forum. The website lists at least four newspaper references so I guess the site is a victim of its own popularity. One thing you can say about us genealogists we definitely embrace new things with enthusiam.

Still waiting my turn
Helen

[kazrbutler]

I don't think the link on the BBC News website helped the overload either. I managed to get in for a look this morning, but access since has been difficult. Certainly fun to use,

Karen

[tony vines]

...and I thought that all genealogists worked late like me! Worked fine at 23.50 tonight. Brilliant site. It makes a far better job of the same exercise I did very crudely for my paternal surname also from the 1881 census but the comparison with the 1998 info is a bonus.

Yawn...time for bed!:D

[Linda]

I'm glad you went to bed Tony - I managed to get a few quick searches in :D

Linda

[BeeE586]

Having used this site (mostly after midnight) I have discovered why I have so many |banghead| |banghead|- a lot of my names just don't seem to exist as they are not found anywhere !

Eileen

[Copper]

This surname profiler site has been discussed on soc.genealogy.britain and somebody connevted with this project has told us this

"Names are missing from the database because (as it states in the help pages of the site) we have a cut off of a minimum of 100 individuals for any name to be in the 1998 database. We are aware that this does omit a lot names, but are hoping to add an additional 250,000 sometime in the future." I don't expect to find Cursue and Stringle there then.

[Peecue]

Have just seen the site at 21:26 and all my family names are seen and it is great to see just where they have populated the areas or moved. Excellent site. Thank you for all your hard work

[tony vines]

Eileen

I don't think you should assume that counties coloured white had none of your names in them. It is either as Copper reports or simply that white is the colour for "not many" rather than "none". I know for a fact that there were people with my surname in some of the white counties at the time of the 1881 census because I did a similar exercise about 3 years ago. My maps weren't so clever but they were more accurate because they showed even small numbers. Mind you I am blessed with a surname with less than 1500 on the census in 1881 so the task wasn't as big as I smugly make out!:)

[BeeE586]

Tony - thank you for your encouraging message. It wasn't that there were white spaces on the map - I didn't even get a map of any sort for several of my names !! I just hope that when the 250 000 extra names are added some of mine will be among them. However, it is a very useful site and deservedly popular; I hope to get on sometime after midnight.

Eileen -- |wave|