Scottish surname distribution.....

[davran]

Does anyone know where I could find some kind of map of surname distribution in Scotland, please?

[Russell]

Hi Davran

I don't know if this site will be of help

http://www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames jsp
Keying in a surname gives distribution density for that name across the U.K. and comes up with some surprising results.

Russell

[davran]

Thanks, Russell, will try it out.

[HeatherH]

Hi Davran and Russell,
I'd be cautious with the spatial/literacy site as it can be a wee bit misleading. I came across the site some months ago and gave it a try.
According to the site Haldane is an English surname , however if you do a bit of digging about you will find it first appeared in the East Lothian area.I thought this was a little strange and pointed the site out to some friends to have a go with their family names.They too found a few discrepencies.I'd be interested to find out how the members of TS find the sites results.
HeatherK

[alex19canteen]

It also says Montgomerie is "Celtic, Scottish" and Montgomery is "English place name, County"

When in fact it's French

[Russell]

Hi Heather & Alex

I agree that some of their 'evidence' is misleading but if it is merely used as a guide to surname distribution based on spelling of a name rather than name origins, it is a useful tool.
It has more relevamce to demography than lexicography. There are enough other sites claiming in-depth knowledge about origins of language all of which should, in my opinion, br taken with a pinch of the proverbial salt.

It can help you decide whether your gut feeling and family evidence has some validity.

Russell

[rdem]

I have to agree Russell this should be used as a geographical tool. My own name Dempsey was rendered as a place name from the "sey" being an English steading, when in fact it is an Irish Gaelic patronym. Thanks for the site.

[Russell]

Hi Folks

I have just realised that there is NO Irish component on this site! I used ROWAN as an entry and the distribution map showed densities only for Scotland, England & Wales. There are loads of Rowans in Ireland so there is a very definite bias in their results.
Treat the results with caution.

Russell

[DavidWW]

A Critical Assessment of www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames from a Genealogical Point of View.

© David W Webster and Talking Scot 2006
Other than for personal research purposes, you may not modify, copy, reproduce, re-publish, upload, post, transmit or distribute this article in any way. If you wish to republish whole or part of this article for anything other than personal use please contact: admin@talkingscot.com

If you want to know where your surname came from then don’t believe the origin info given on www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames.

Where they got the info from I know not, but on checking just a few surnames, the origin info is way off. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

But the surname distribution maps are excellent, just as long as you understand that the data from which they have been produced, and the fact that the purpose of the site is socio-economic rather than genealogical.

Also, please take a few minutes to understand the sources for the data.

These are the 1881 census for England, Wales and Scotland (not Ireland), and two datasets for 1998, - the electoral register and the credit reference agency, Experian, database. Note that it’s possible to select maps showing either the 1881 or the 1998 distribution.

Both of these sources are very much “snapshots” of the situation and use the surnames as recorded. In other words, there is no attempt to correct obvious mis-spellings, or to link surnames that genealogists know are related, or to distinguish between those that genealogists know are not related or only “accidentally” related.

Nor does there appear to have been any attempt to understand how surnames can, or, rather, have evolved over time.

Prior to the late 1800s, even the early 1900s, surname spelling varied widely. Especially for less frequently occurring surnames this can sometimes mean that, later, when spellings became relatively fixed, the variant that resulted might not always obviously link to its true source.

Prior to that time, especially for less common surnames, the recorded spelling depended critically on the ear of the recorder. Let’s consider SMITH, for example. In recent times there are the simple variants involving “Y” instead of “I’, thus SMYTH, or a trailing “E”, thus SMITHE and SMYTHE.

Or take YORKSTON[E] and YORSTON, - let’s not get into other variants for the moment! Firstly, www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames, gives the origin of both names as English. Oh aye, so that’ll be why the 1881 maps on www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames both show virtually all occurrences of those names in Scotland ??!!

Look again at the 1881 distribution maps for these two “variants” and you will quickly note that YORKSTON occurs nowhere outside the Lothians, and the counties of Stirling and Lanark. By 1998 it’s spread to another few Scottish counties plus one Southern English county (an emigrant?).

YORSTON on the other hand, in 1881, is predominantly a Caithness, Shetland and Orkney surname with a very few occurrences in The Lothians and the SE Border counties.

By 1998 it’s much more widely spread in Scotland and is also in a good few places in England, plus a distinct concentration in Breconshire, I think, - my Welsh geography is sadly lacking. Is the latter based on an actual move of people, - miners from the Lothian coalfields and shale mining industry, for example, or just the way that a certain Welsh surname was recorded in 1998 compared to 1881, - I wonder?

In terms of Scottish pronunciation, YORKSTON can very easily become YORSTON if the “K” is elided!! My own YORKSTON line, through my great-grandmother, is solidly from the counties of Stirling and East Lothian, latterly Edinburgh, back to the late 1600s as far as I can determine, but is sometimes spelt YORSTON, as well as other variants, but nary a link can I yet find back to Caithness, Orkney or Shetland so far in my tree, but that is not to say that there isn’t such an earlier link.

The lesson to be taken from this example is that originally quite separate surnames can “evolve” in a manner that can lead to a situation where they are similarly spelt and/or recorded.

To take another example from my own tree, I have a WATSON line where the West of Scotland glottal stop led to its evolution to WASON over a couple of generations via intermediates such as WAUSSON and WAWSON, - this in the context where WASON is a quite separate surname in its own right.

Interestingly, in the West of Scotland, the modern day pronunciation in Scotland is “WAWSON”, with the obvious link from this pronunciation to WATSON with a West of Scotland glottal stop, but the Ulster pronunciation is “WAYSON” !!

Then take my own surname. According to www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames Webster is “English - Occupational Name; Ending in -Er; Manufacturing Occupation”.

Hmmmmm, …. errrummmmm, …… no it’s not!! As you’d imagine, given my genealogical background, I know a bit about my own surname. Yes it’s an occupational name but the origin is both English and Scottish, with probable links in terms of some people of the name across to Belgium and The Netherlands, deriving from the Flemish term “wabster” for a female weaver.

In this latter context, it’s no great surprise to note on www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames that the concentration of the WEBSTER surname is predominantly the East coast of Britain, further concentrated in and around ports that, historically, traded with the Continent, - in the case of Scotland in earlier times, Aberdeen and Montrose, - the latter was originally a major trading port as far as the Baltic and Low Countries were concerned. Leith only came into the picture much later, in case anyone is wondering!

But, like many occupational surnames, and all other surnames, apart from obvious purely locational surnames, WEBSTER may well have developed separately in several different areas. The possible Scottish origin, thought to be from the occupation of cloth weaver, includes the variants Vobstar, Vobster, Wobistar, Wobister, Wobstair, and Wobstar, all the latter occurring in Scotland in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In Scotland it could also derive from MacNider through the Anglification of that Celtic surname, “nider” being the Scottish Gaelic for weaver. Following Culloden it was better not to have a Highland surname!

In Latin documents the surname was rendered as ”textor”, so I wonder what variants that might have led to?

On the origin theme, referring back to Yorkston and Yorston, www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames gives the origins of both of these as “English - Locational Name; Settlement Ending; Ton”. In view of what I’ve written above, you will understand that I choose to disbelieve that!!

As far as I’m aware, a major influence in the “fixing” of surnames in the UK was the National Health Insurance Act of 1911, - the first major, ongoing database of people in the UK, which couldn’t have functioned effectively if someone regularly changed the spelling of their surname. Even were someone able to quote their unique NI number, can you imagine the confusion that could have resulted if the surname spelling wasn’t consistent?

That situation differs radically from censuses and voters’ rolls as these were snapshots of the situation at one particular date, and not intended to be used over a person’s lifetime.

To some extent, however, I’m begging the question in terms of not taking the situation further and suggesting how to look for variants. Firstly, there’s the obvious source of surname books, e.g. “Black’s” for Scotland,………….

Secondly, if you don’t know how to use wildcards, then learn how to do so, and use that new skill to “play” with wildcards in the 1881 census CDs. You’ll be surprised at some of the possible surname variants that are thrown up which you hadn’t ever thought of.

In a similar vein, explore your surnames of interest via the Namex system, see http://www.namethesaurus.com/Thesaurus/ . On another page, at http://www.namethesaurus.com/Thesaurus/FAQ.htm , there’s a good treatment of the whole situation from a genealogical point of view.

And then, how about Soundex? Again, please understand that the purpose behind the creation of this system was not to assist present day genealogical researchers.

Instead, it needs to be understood that Soundex is a phonetic coding system used to group together surnames that sound alike in the early US censuses (e.g. SMITH/SMYTH) in the context of the many nationalities that arrived in the USA via immigration from Europe.

Soundex does indeed help to find a surname in USA census documents and surname databases, even though it may have been recorded under various spellings, but will not necessarily assist with surname variants in the historical records in Scotland, or elsewhere in the UK or Europe.

David

[davran]

If you want to know where your surname came from then don’t believe the origin info given on www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames .

Thank you David, that was most illuminating. Ancestry have a similar feature, but without the Scottish element, which was why I made the enquiry in the first place. I agree about the origins. Some of my husband's ancestors are the SAW family from Buckinghamshire. Spatial-literacy have decided that the origin is from the Far East. As far back as the late 18th century the Saws were ag labs and carpenters in rural Bucks, so it seems most unlikely that an Asian immigrant would have founded a dynasty there! (Though there are rumours of French aristocrats from the time of the French Revolution )