Common names

[Lynda Cunningham]

The Frustration of The Common Name

I don't think it was a dream or simply wishfull thinking? Somewhere down the line, I'm sure I was told of a website devoted
to the common surnames - Smith, Jones, Williams, Taylor, Brown etc; With two branches of Smiths in my husband's tree, hours and hours of trawling, lots of wasted money on certificates, can someone point me to this Shangrila? :D

If not, would it be reasonable to have sub-forums here, devoted to the common names, or is that just ridiculous?

It's just a thought. Help

best wishes
Lynda Cunningham

[Geoffers]

Sorry, I don't know of such a web-site.

How commonly occurring would a surname need to be to be a 'common surname'? Would this be counted nationally or locally? Some names are very localised, commonly occurring in a single parish, but rare elsewhere. Some are common to a county or region, but unusual elsewhere - and then there's SMITH.

Possibly it might be thought (and this is just a guess, I don't know) that separate forums for individual names might make these forums more difficult to navigate and possibly result in duplication of information posted on the county forums? One of the things that puts me off the rootsweb mailing lists (apart from the bad-tempered spats) is the fact that there are just so many of them - where to put information so that it is best seen? It's just a personal opinion, but I think the number of forums is roughly about right at the moment.

There's a simple, but effective search engine on these forums which can locate entries very quickly, so maybe just post details on the relevant county forums. There's also an unwanted certificates forum, so if you and others buy the wrong certificate, you can post details there.

Geoffers

[Lynda Cunningham]

Hi Geoffers

It must have been a dream then? I thank you kind sir.

I know I'm a newbie, with just 4½ years of researching the family history under my belt, but when it comes to searching for my Smiths, it does feel a little like I've been there, done that and AAArrrhhhhhhh. So throwing caution to the wind, while being fairly sure that the response, if any, would be as yours, I decided I would post my query anyway.

While using many of the *popular* online searches, one is stopped short by the announcement, narrow it down, or enough is enough, and that's your lot! Soundex and the like is just a no-no.

With a few variations, I believe it is relatively easy to identify the same old few that are up there, top of the common surname charts, and therein lies the problem. The listings that are out there, are just too general, and the postings go back so far.

Even with the ability to search within the body of a forum's individual postings, when it comes to THOSE names, a search can offer up other distractions like street names and occupations, so the lists seem endless. Indeed, as the membership of this wonderful site grows, the unwanted certificate forum for instance, may start to do just that, with witnesses' names for example?

So I need a website for a designated top ten, Smith, Jones, Evans, etc; with sub forums for county, for forename, for initial, for occupation, for - something? :confused: With an inner search facility......Oh I don't know, I'm thinking and rambling. Sorry, I'll stop now and climb back into my can of worms.

ATB
Lynda

PS. Before someone suggests I could attempt to do it myself - I wouldn't know how. Perhaps I could dream the solution :D

[Geoffers]

PS. Before someone suggests I could attempt to do it myself - I wouldn't know how. Perhaps I could dream the solution :D
I know nothing of web-sites, so can't help there. But you could always get the ball rolling and collate information on a spreadsheet or family history programme, and then advertise this fact on a forum. If you didn't want to cover the whole country, you could just cover a county. I have a one-county study for my surname which once set up, doesn't take too long to look after.

Geoffers

[Frank W]

Hi Lynda
I'd suggest that the Rootsweb Surname Lists, Message Boards, and Mailing Lists might be worth looking at. Certainly they have the SMITH, WILLIAMS & TAYLOR surnames Lists with archives from 1996-2005, and probably all the other names you mention as well.

If anyone knows of the definitive SMITH website, then you might try a message quoting Country, County, and time period (to narrow the results).

Many of the SMITH website references found by search engines appear to be for part of individual family trees, and not general collections of SMITH data.

[Frank W]

I wonder what is the best sort of info to put on a website for a general collection of data for a specific surname?
i.e. not confined to a single individual family tree.

There are so many Census indexes available now that there seems to be little point in including them. Similarly, the BMD indexes are widely available, but lacking the essential details found on Certificates.

Perhaps the most useful stuff is what is extracted from Parish Registers and records, Probate Calendars, and Strays lists.

There seems to be some merit in working on a 'per County' basis for the very commonly found surnames.

[susan-w]

Maybe freeBMD, for example, could have an extra field where you could note that you had bought the certificate, and who the parents were? Then other researchers would know whether to exclude that Smith or not :)

The trouble is, a mistake could lead you to exclude a useful Smith...

Well, just a quick "un-thought-out" thought

Sue

[Lynda Cunningham]

The good news............ is that I'm not completely off my trolley, and I didn't dream it. I found the following on a Rootsweb posting from 2003

H.P. Carlisle" <helen.carlisle@ntlworld.com>
Subject: Smith & Jones Genealogy
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:26:43 +0100

The site has now been published and I have had some feedback from some of those who originally came back to me to say that they felt the site would be worthwhile. The bad news......... the website appears to be defunct

best wishes
Lynda

[Guy Etchells]

Tip, if you are given the url of a web site that seems to be defunct try looking for it in the Wayback machine
http://web.archive.org/web/

This will often show the history of the site allowing you to view it again
Cheers
Guy

[Lynda Cunningham]

Good morning Guy

What a brilliant tip - I'm glad I started this thread now.

I'll check that out immediately, and the defunct Smiths while I'm at it. I suspect that as I appear to be the only bod here that had heard of it, poor *publicity* may have been their downfall, or it was simply un-workable?

Thank very much :D

best wishes
Lynda