Howard Mathieson, a retired University of Winnipeg Geography instructor and administrator, demonstrated the approach used by surname researchers to trace a surname to its origin in a recent Guild of One Name Studies webinar. It's now available at http://one-name.org/2018-webinar-series-no-4/.
Howard's presentation includes surname case studies that reflect the regional geography of England. He looks at the underlying regional character of the English landscape, examining the pattern of Saxon and Scandinavian place names, the distinctive surnames which resulted as well as the types of surname origin.
I'd never heard of the Banwell Index that compares the relative frequency of the population in a sub region with that of the national population. It and the other techniques discussed might be helpful looking at surnames in your family tree – wherever they originated in the world.
Isn't there a site somewhere that shows the distribution of a name in the world from it's beginning?
ReplyDeleteIsn't there a site that shows name distribution in the world from the "beginning" of that name's use?
ReplyDelete