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Saturday, March 23, 2013

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - How Many Surnames?


Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 


1)  Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to Count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3)  Tell us how many surnames are in your database and, if possible, which Surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!  Or 10!

4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on Facebook, or in Google Plus Stream post.

NOTE:  If you can't figure out how to do this in your GMP (Genealogy Management Program), use the Help button and search for "count persons" then follow directions.  

Here's mine:

I'm going to use RootsMagic 6 because that's where I'm doing my current additions, deletions and editing and is my most up-to-date collection.  In RootsMagic 6, go to Reports, then Lists and scroll down to "Surname Statistics List."  I then chose "Frequency of Surnames" from the list presented.

That took about 20 seconds and I have a 150 page list!  I didn't count every one of them - there are 149 pages with 39 names per page, plus the last page has 13.  That's a grand total of 5,824 surnames in my database with 41,533 persons.  The top 10 are, with birth date ranges:

*  SEAVER - 4,360 persons, from 1608 to 2011
*  BUCK - 680 persons, from 1585 to 1965
*  SMITH - 644 persons, from 1526 to 2005*  FITZ RANDOLPH - 483 persons, from 1565 to 1884
* VAUX - 465 persons, from 1620 to 2006

*  DILL - 421 persons, from 1645 to 1993
*  RICHMAN - 320 persons, from 1622 to 1985
*  NEWTON - 317 persons, from 1690 to 1997
*  CHAMPLIN - 302 persons, from 1618 to 1903
*  CULVER - 270 persons from 1650 to 1981

I have 141 Mary's without a surname, and 127 Elizabeth's without a surname, and 307 persons without any name at all (there's a blank line for this one!).

Of course, if I added up all the persons without a surname, my LNU's are probably the biggest group on the list. 

I didn't see a way to get a count on first names - can anyone figure this out in RootsMagic 6, or in another program?  


The URL for this post is:

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

16 comments:

  1. 361 surnames
    Used RootsMagic Surname Statistics Report for this task
    Top 5 surnames:

    Barker
    Roller
    Bonecutter
    Prickett
    Clark
    not included is "surname unknown"

    ReplyDelete
  2. I used RootsMagic 5 to do this. I had 28 pages with a total of 4,065 names. The most at 259 were those without surnames! The top 10 names are:
    Loveless 1766-2011
    Welch 1662-1983
    Lancaster 1734-2012
    Coor 1715-2006
    Gorrell 1770-2011
    Nilsen 1865-2011
    Tierney 1777-1977
    Bishop 1765-1957
    Lundquist 1844-2002
    Sullivan 1811-1990

    I'd have more Nilsen & Lundquist, except these are the immigrants who came to America and their ancestors used patronymic names.

    What I found interesting was looking at the single entries. Some were first names and others were misspelled surnames. I have some fixing to do!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I used FTM 2012 surname report. I have 7055 people with 1148 unique names, including LNU.

    Surname Count Male Female Earliest Most recent
    Spurgeon 335 158 176 1770 1943
    Fleener 310 157 153 1754 1941
    Helmick 224 112 112 1682 1937
    Hendrickson 208 109 99 1737 1938
    Decker 154 88 66 1803 1955
    Winters 121 58 63 1732 1948
    Fishel 111 64 47 1810 1939
    Reneau 111 52 59 1687 1930
    Bilderback 105 61 44 1660 1945
    Morgareidge 102 64 38 1700 1909

    ReplyDelete
  4. I use the FTM 2012 Surname Report. I selected "all individuals" and "sort by surname count." The report totaled 1007 individuals with 233 unique surnames.

    My top 10 are:
    Noble 1826-1966
    Schuck 1825-1933
    Meisberger 1804-1929
    Shuda 1798-1909
    Bianchi 1831-1958
    Strauser 1804-1910
    Gunther 1858-1930
    Concini 1851-1979
    Madara 1887-1930
    McGinn 1829-1908

    ReplyDelete
  5. Here's mine:

    http://gatapleytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-how-many.html

    That was awesome, Randy! And I am so impressed that you still got that post done while enjoying Roots Tech!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I used Family Tree Maker 2012 Surname report for this sorted by surname count and the top 10 are:

    Reeder 156, from 1736 to 1995
    Bailey 117, from 1759 to 1947
    Wright 99, from 1703 to 1905
    Free 79, from 1757 to 1962
    Barling 74, from 1788 to 1922
    Brothers 63, from 1724 to 1925
    Lindsay 57, from 1814 to 1971
    Annakin 53, from 1756 to 1960
    Barnard 51, from 1754 to 1898
    Ketteringham 50, from 1765 to 1907

    There are 4462 people in this tree and it doesn't contain any of my spouse's family. The only way I can think of to get the first names is to create a custom report containing first name(s) and last name, exporting it to a spreadsheet, and then looking at the distribution.


    ReplyDelete
  7. Here's is my post on my surname tallies http://www.researchjournal.yourislandroutes.com/2013/03/sngf-surname-tallies/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Randy! Here is mine:

    http://www.genealogysphere.com/2013/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-how-many.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Using Legacy Family Tree I have 357 unique surnames for 1503 individuals in 474 families. This information is available on the General Information option on the Help Menu.

    To find how many individuals per surname use the reports icon on the toolbar and select Books/Other tab. The Surname Summary is one of the miscellaneous reports.

    Name Qty Date Range
    Maby 212 1714 - 1993
    Oldham 143 1704 - 1924
    Shaw 68 1799 - 1928
    Whittington 57 1616 - 1843
    Bourgeois 52 1772 - 1873
    Richmond 44 1800 - 1992
    Boudreaux 43 1775 - 1886
    Maddox 37 1774 - 1940
    Clement 35 1770 - 1938
    Bowers 33 1775 - 1900

    No Surname 41 1700 - 2012

    It is in alphabetical order but can be output to a CSV and imported in Excel to be resorted.

    I have not done much with collateral lines as I am still working on entering and finding my direct lines. Looking at the numbers that others have I see I have a long way to go.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I used Roots Magic 6 to make my list. I have 24 pages of 45 names each plus 2, or a total of 1082 names. The top 10 names are:
    Shortridge - 252 from 1630 to 2003
    Coffin - 169 from 1561 to 2008
    Unknown - 127 from 1625 to 1991
    Freienmuth - 80 from 1637 to 2005
    Kirby - 55 from 1840 to 1990
    Buchheim - 52 from 1689 to 2000
    Jones - 47 from 1838 to 1993
    Schmitz - 38 from 1835 to 2001
    Mills - 36 from 1714 to 1931
    A tie for the 10th place between Spiri, Ernst, and Davis - 34 from 1786 to 2012.
    I have 4266 names.

    ReplyDelete
  11. FTM 2011, usual routine (Surname Report, all individuals, sort by surname count). Found 2586 individual values for last name out of 10860 entries. The count is a little misleading, due to some of the conventions I use for unknown people that have to be there (e.g., I assign a number to the unknown parents of known siblings). With that caveat...

    The top 8 surnames (those with counts over 100) are:

    Liesse (395, 1550-2011)
    Archer (241, 1793-1994)
    [no surname] (210, 1080-1970)
    Coburn (166, 1520-1848)
    Williams (159, 1665-1997)
    Winslow (133, 1595-1960)
    Stevens (120, 1615-1998)
    Buckmaster (119, 1774-1917)

    This is all my and my ex-wife's families, but not all my research (much done by my grandmother and my ex-wife's aunt), so nobody should be particularly impressed!

    Dave Liesse

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  12. A link to my list and stats: http://ohspusch.blogspot.com/2013/03/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-surname.html

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  13. Using Family Tree Maker with 2589 individuals the top 10 surnames with counts are:

    Shaw - 96
    Kenney - 86
    Dupler - 69
    Gordon - 68
    Mangold - 68
    Voyce - 53
    Thomas - 52
    Smith - 48
    McLeod - 44
    Eisen - 40

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  14. I am very happy to read this. This is the kind of manual that needs to be given and not the random misinformation that's at the other blogs. Appreciate your sharing this best doc.

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  15. The RootsMagician probably has a better trick, but re counting given names, I created a custom report using only the field of given name. Then saved it as a text file. This creates a tab-delimited file.
    Then I opened it in Excel, and sorted alphabetically.
    Using the row numbers, and just a bit of arithmetic, I found I had 42 Johns, 17 Nathaniels, 11 Mathews, 36 Marys, 1 Bronce, etc. And a lot of Unknowns....

    ReplyDelete