Genealogy - Where is your name located?

[Highland Logan]

Very cool site. Thanks for the link.

Frank

[Carolina Kiltman]

Lots of fun. Interesting though, that there more of my Mother's maiden name in the US than in Scotland/UK. My Father's name, though, is almost equally divided between US and the remainder of the old British Empire.

[Coemgen]

Hmm.

According to the site, my name (Mellis) is Scottish, when it is in fact a variation of great-great-grandpa's Croatian name, and was foisted upon him at Ellis Island, as the immigration officials couldn't pronounce his name, and it began with an M, had some Ls in it, and ended with S, so they took Ellis and put an M on the front.

I also know that my family, my aunt, and a great-great aunt in West Virginia are currently his only living descendants.

So were did all the Mellises in New Zealand come from?

[bjproc]

this is it for my surname




theres also this to look at

http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/default.aspx

[scotchmaster]

Check this site out. It shows where in the world your name is located and the frequency/million for individual countries.

http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/Default.aspx

Brian

Very Cool. The British Isles myself.

[gilmore]

Hmm.

According to the site, my name (Mellis) is Scottish, when it is in fact a variation of great-great-grandpa's Croatian name, and was foisted upon him at Ellis Island, as the immigration officials couldn't pronounce his name, and it began with an M, had some Ls in it, and ended with S, so they took Ellis and put an M on the front.

I also know that my family, my aunt, and a great-great aunt in West Virginia are currently his only living descendants.

So were did all the Mellises in New Zealand come from?

The story that an immigrant's surname was changed at Ellis Island by a cruelly inept and impersonal immigration official is a common one, and usually untrue. Immigrants more often changed their names themselves to one similar to those found in the US (or whatever country they were immigrating to) in order to fit into their new country.

[macneighill]

Very neat. Here are my results for Nelson:

UNITED STATES 1812.53
CANADA 1376.7
AUSTRALIA 881.88
NEW ZEALAND 741.4
UNITED KINGDOM 573.06
IRELAND 191.65
SWEDEN 122.61
NORWAY 34.78
LUXEMBOURG 25.51
DENMARK 20.98

The results for the original spelling of our family name Neilson:

NEW ZEALAND 315.44
AUSTRALIA 209.95
CANADA 168.25
UNITED KINGDOM 98.09
UNITED STATES 29.71
IRELAND 17.83
SPAIN 1.15
BELGIUM 1.15
NORWAY 1.13
DENMARK 0.65

[Cynthia]

Fascinating! Here are the results for my name, Griffith:

UNITED STATES 321.63
AUSTRALIA 171.12
IRELAND 163.88
UNITED KINGDOM 129.92
NEW ZEALAND 122.31
CANADA 71.75
NETHERLANDS 4.92
FRANCE 3.21
SWITZERLAND 3.19
ARGENTINA 2.98

[Mael Coluim]

Very interesting site. Thanks, Brian for sharing it!

Top Countries
NEW ZEALAND 349.78
AUSTRALIA 159.6
UNITED KINGDOM 139.77
CANADA 133.41
UNITED STATES 41.

[GDub]

Surname: Wium

DENMARK 22.11
NORWAY 14.99
NEW ZEALAND 3.22
CANADA 3.21
AUSTRIA 1.59
UNITED STATES 0.18
UNITED KINGDOM 0.02

Interesting that there is no mention of Iceland, which is where my father's family came from (by way of Denmark 500 years earlier). You can still find the Wium surname in the Reykjavík phone book, though there are more in Akureyri. Because the name has Danish roots no "son" or dottir" is added. There are also some Wium's in South Africa.

My Mom's family is Irish--very Irish.

I like to say I'm my own master and slave