OK you Colonials....I KNOW where you came from.....

Now....if you were born in the USA, Canada, Oz or NZ, chances are, unless Great Grandmama married a Johnnie Foreigner, you have more than a fair chance of having a fine upstanding British surname lurking within the family tree during the last couple of generations.

Before you get too excited, this DOESN'T necessarily entitle you to lift your finger whilst drinking tea, be excused from showering everyday or shedding a tear when England lose at cricket.

You see, there is now a little list of websites that are causing a bit of a stir over here, showing that people didn't move around the place quite as much as we thought they did.

About a year ago, the national Census records were put onto the web, which promptly crashed as we all logged on at once. Now, they have used data from these records, to come up with some fascinating bits and pieces.

Don't all log on at once, now.......

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002171,00.html


My, you've come a long way - without even leaving home By Nicola Woolcock


"SURNAME maps that blow apart the myth of mass geographical mobility are the lure of the latest family history website to be swamped by huge demand.
The Surname Profiler website was set up only five days ago but has received more than three million hits from people keen to trace their roots. Its findings put paid to the belief that recent population movement around Britain has left a jumble of surnames with no discernible regional patterns.

Users can look at maps that compare the distribution of more than 25,000 surnames in the 1881 Census with that of the 1998 electoral register.

They throw up startlingly similar pictures for many names and indicate that relatively few people move far from their birthplace. But a part of the website that will prove most interesting for social climbers allows people to check the relative status of their surname......."





MARVELLOUS!