Now this is fascinating. Go here, type in your last name, select the census year you’re looking for, and you’ll get a map of the geographic distribution of your last name for that period. It looks to be relatively accurate; I know our family name first appeared in Virginia, and when I check for 1850 the only state which has my name is that one.
From the website: “The sources of the surname data are the 1850 Census, 1880 Census, 1920 Census, and 1990’s phone books. Note that the Census data is a sampling of 1 in 100 names, so the 1990 data is the most accurate.”
Well, Linky…
I plugged in my maiden name, married name, Mother’s maiden name–all were not in the data base..
It was a good idea, though…
You’re not even in the 1990s phone books? Who are you really? 😉
It’s only the top 50K surnames.
My name, my father’s original name (he changed it a few years before I was born), my mother’s maiden name, and my paternal grandmother’s maiden name all drew blanks. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name (Friend, anglicized from Freund) is in the database.
I was throwing a conniption until I re-read the meanings of the colors. It’s one in 10000, not 10000 or more people with that name. Up to then, I was wondering how there were over 10000 people with my last name in Hawaii in 1850…