Surname Profiler

[Fluff]

http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames/default.aspx

Quite a nifty website. You can see distrubution of people with your surname in 1881 and 1998 in the UK.

[Brian Ellis]

I'm afraid that it distorts ethnicities by confusing numeric data with origin, at least for GB. I put in various family (wife's and my own) names, going back 3 generations (ie to before 1881). Almost inevitably, the names/counties combinations showed white, even though I knew the ethnic origin. For example, my surname is a very old name in the Scottish Borders, mainly Berwickshire, a sept of the Macpherson clan, and has nothing to do with the Welsh Ellis. The fact that we have almost died out (there may be a dozen or so VERY distant cousins still alive: I'm the last survivor with the name in my branch of the family, other than an adoptive nephew) does not mean we have lost our origin. The only family that appeared correctly was my maternal grandfather's, which was purple in 1881 and red in 1998.

I mention this in case somebody believes that this could help to start a genealogical search - not necessarily.

[dbdg]

My name existed in one county in 1881 but strangely there is no data for 1998, I know of 4.