Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Surnames

Randy Seavers of Genea-Musings has posted our weekly challenge game:
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 database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3)  Tell us how many surnames, and if possible, which Surname has the most entries.  If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!


I'm using Family Tree Maker 2011 and this is the first time I've look for this option in this version. It only took me a couple of minutes to figure out I needed to create a report. Go to Publish, choose the Person Reports, then create a Surname Report. In the report options choose All Indiviuals and Sort by Surname Count. Choose Create again and voila!


My report is 25 pages long but, many of the surnames are only recorded once. As my Irish relatives would say, "They're the blow-ins". Really they are just the distant collateral lines I haven't investigated yet.


I like this report because I gives more than just a count of a surnames use; it also breaks the usage down by Male, Female, Earliest, Most recent. I find that very interesting.


Since I always have a problem following directions:) here are my top 12 most used surnames:

	Surname Report
Surname	Count	Male	Female	Earliest	Most recent
LEISURE	371	217	154	1719	2004
MILLER	193	106	87	1702	1979
STEWART	179	93	86	1720	1966
WALKER	158	91	67	1655	1923
KENNEDY	155	86	68	1750	1994
BARBER	150	82	68	1652	1896
BENEFIEL	111	53	58	1759	1916
BLUE	94	47	47	1735	1917
STEPHENS	83	45	38	1730	1904
HIGGINS	77	39	38	1808	1996
BUCHANAN	67	33	34	1651	1899

Looking at this, I'm beginning to see why writing up the Leisure family is taking me so long!