Our Ancestral Surnames

Course summary

In the all-encompassing Our Ancestral Surnames course, Carol Baxter shows genealogists how to:

• Research their surnames of origin
• Write about their surname origins in an interesting way
• Learn about the sounds and letters of surnames and how they can create problems for genealogists 
• Find surnames in online databases.  

This lesson explores the development of the hereditary surname system in England.

    Most countries experienced a similar process for the same reasons, although the timeframe might be different. Thus, the knowledge acquired in this lesson can be applied to your own ancestral surnames, or it can be used to explore the development of the hereditary surname system in your ancestor’s country of origin. 

Lesson type:               Educational

Video duration:          32 minutes

Reading time:             5 minutes

Handout:                     Yes

Our hereditary surnames can be divided into four categories. Each are discussed in detail in this lesson.

    Additionally, we learn how to gather information about our surnames of interest and how to communicate that information in the form of facts that flow.

Lesson type:               Educational plus writing skills

Video duration:          30 minutes

Reading time:             14 minutes

Handout:                     Yes

In this lesson, we explore the idea of the “hierarchy of importance” in our ancestors’ acquisition of a hereditary surname. Then we expand on our “Just the Facts” prose to produce more interesting descriptions that will generate a twitch of our readers’ lips or a twinkle in their eyes. 

Lesson type:               Educational plus writing skills

Video duration:          36 minutes

Reading time:             8 minutes

Handout:                     Yes

As Alice in Wonderland so aptly declared, the surname-origin descriptions in this lesson get “Curiouser and curiouser!” These are the descriptions in which we really let down our hair and go with the flow. They include a number of different writing styles within our “nonfiction with a twist” genre.

Lesson type:               Writing skills

Video duration:          28 minutes

Reading time:             9 minutes

Handout:                     Yes

Many surnames are not listed in surname dictionaries, especially if they are rarely found in the community today. Others don't seem to be adequately explained by the listed origins or derivations.

    This lesson provides strategies for determining the origin of these types of surnames. It also includes some different writing styles in which our research results can be communicated to our readers.  

Lesson type:                Educational plus writing skills

Video duration:           34 minutes

Reading time:              19 minutes

Handout:                      Yes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if we can't find our ancestor's surname, our chances of tracing that ancestral line are pretty much zip, zero, zilch. But a known surname can also prove elusive because it's recorded in such a way that we can't locate it. This too can prove genealogically disastrous.

    Helpfully, most surname 'distortions' follow decipherable patterns. Like a dart thrown at a dartboard, if it misses the bulls-eye, it usually hits one of the outer rings. These 'outer rings' are of two types: sound distortions (e.g. Ahearn/Ohearn) and spelling distortions (e.g. Rourke/Bourke).

    Surnames that experience distortions in the first letter are the most difficult to locate. This lesson explores these problems and shows you how to overcome them. 

Lesson type:                Educational 

Video duration:           ? minutes

Handout:                      Yes

Prepared but not yet recorded. 

Description to come

Lesson type:               Educational s

Video duration:          ? minutes

Handout:                     Yes (to come)

Not yet prepared

Description to come

Lesson type:               Educational

Video duration:          ? minutes

Handout:                     Yes (to come)

Not yet prepared

If you have already worked out that ‘Mc’ and ‘Mac’ surnames are the most complicated British surnames, you must listen to this webinar. And if you haven’t already worked this out, you must absolutely listen to this webinar.

    "Mc" surnames are double the trouble because they can suffer distortions at the beginning, middle and end of the ‘Mc’ prefix as well as at the beginning, middle and end of the rest of the surname (the root word). Sound glides are a particular problem, in which the ‘k’ sound at the end of the ‘Mc’ prefix distorts the first letter of the root word (e.g. McCue/McKew/McHugh). Transcription errors can also produce a non-"Mc" surname (e.g. Mackever/Markever). 

    This lesson will help you keep you sane when you encounter the complexities of these mad Scottish-origin surnames. 

Lesson type:                Educational 

Video duration:           58 minutes

Handout:                      Yes

Have you ever failed to find a surname in an online database search? Or have you been frustrated at having to undertake multiple searches to find surname variants, and have wondered why such obvious variants aren’t “grouped” together? Or perhaps you’ve wondered what entries you might have missed because you don’t understand how these search engines do in fact “group” surnames. 

    Surnames are like the other half of the DNA double helix. It’s all very well if we discover a DNA connection, but if we can’t link the two families together because we can’t find the relevant entries for our ancestors, much of our time and money is wasted. 

    This lesson explains how online databases approach surname spellings, allowing us to maximise our use of their powerful search engines.   

Lesson type:                Educational 

Video duration:           52 minutes

Handout:                      Yes