From Randy (a cousin discovery!!) over at Genea-Musings:
it's Saturday Night -
time for more Genealogy Fun!!!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:
(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 or database.
(2) Tell us which GMP you are 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!! Or 20!!!
(4) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, in a post on Facebook, or on Twitter.
Here's mine:
I use Family Tree Maker 19 (FTM19) as my GMP. In FTM19, go to "Publish,", then "Person Reports," and then choose "Surname Report." I then tweaked the Settings to "All Individuals," "Sort by Surname Count," and "Show Divider Between Surnames."
I have 75 pages of surnames, listed from the most number of instances down to the least number of instances (1). I did a count of how many surnames on a page (44), multiplied that by 74 pages, and then added the 20 entries on the last page (page 75) and got a total of 3,276 surnames in my family tree.
This is the first page of my report:
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| Surname Report 05-14-2022 |
The top 20 are, with birth date ranges:
TAPLEY - 927 from 1691-2010
MNU (Maiden Name Unknown) - 672 from 1531-1984
OZMUN - 300 from 1764-1973
CLAXTON - 299 from 1764-1997
DRAKE - 291 from 1647-2001
PRICE - 272 from 1680-1967
BUSH - 264 from 1589-1971
POWELL - 257 from 1750-1980
SMITH - 249 from 1648-1984
RANNEY - 232 from 1661-1973
HUBBARD - 212 from 1601-1925
WILLIAMS - 145 from 1777-1992
DAVIS - 126 from 1760-1965
GOODWIN - 125 from 1776-1961
DURDEN - 123 from 1775-1960
JOHNSON - 123 from 1681-1974
WILSON - 116 from 1847-1981
BARWICK - 113 from 1731-1957
WHEELER - 108 from 1807-2017
BEASLEY - 97 from 1788-1983
I found surprises in my list. First of all I would have thought that my number of Tapleys would have been higher. I also did not realize how high the numbers are for Smith, Johnson, Davis, and Williams. I had to laugh that Powell was in the top 10 - all of the them married into my family. I have none in my direct line. However, my family intertwines with the Powells over and over again to the point that a fellow Powell researcher I know and I call each other cousins anyway. I was surprised (and disappointed) that the number of Odoms, Goths, or Schwalls were not higher. But then I have had a harder time researching those surnames, so it shouldn't be a surprise.
I am looking forward to see how this changes over the next few years since I am about to dive into the Ranney family records again.
Wow! You have a lot of high numbers in your list. In fact, my highest total would only be #1 in your list. It also looks like we may share Hubbard ancestors, although that surname didn't make my list.
ReplyDeleteMy Hubbards, as you can see, are from waaayyyy back. We should compare notes sometime. Thank you for always commenting on my posts. :)
DeleteIt's interesting how many of us have Smiths in our tree :) I know I do - both by marriage, but there none the less.
ReplyDeleteAll my Smiths are by marriage. But that name is everywhere! LOL
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