Whimsy: mapping the origin of an ancestor using given forenames

 

John McEwan

 

19th July 2005

 

Those of Scottish origin know that forenames are typically passed from generation to generation. The eldest born son is normally given the name of the grandfather, second son the name of the maternal grandfather, third son the name of the father, 4th fathers oldest brother, 5th the mothers oldest brother and so on.

 

Given that the both parents also often came from similar locations, it is not surprising that rather few forenames tended to be used within a region. Those who have tracked ancestors through births, deaths, marriages and census records are often astounded by the confusing forest of identical first names.

 

While regional patterns of first names are known to exist, just how definitive are they for Scots ancestors? As pure whimsy an experiment (with a sample size of one) was undertaken using my patrilineal ancestors who came from Islay.

 

Generation 1              Donald

 

Generation 2              Archibald (? Son)

 

Generation 3              Neil (6th son)

 

Generation 4              Robert Ferguson (2nd son)

 

Generation 5              Colin Campbell  (2nd son)

 

To plot the distribution of forenames I used 1881 Surname Atlas available from www.archersoftware.co.uk

 

 

Fig 1. Map for              Donald                                    and                                                Archibald                                                                    

as a forename with numbers by county

 

 

Fig 2. Map for    Neil                                                   and                                   Robert                   

as a forename in 1881 with numbers by county

 

Fig 3. Map for    Ferguson                                        and                                      Colin      

as a forename in 1881 with numbers by county

 

 

Fig 4. Map for Campbell as a forename in 1881 with numbers by county

 

The first obvious characteristic is the highest density locations cluster around Scotland and are greatest in this region for 6 of 7 forenames. The second is the names initially seem most common in Argyllshire in the first 3 generations. Perhaps not surprisingly all these ancestors were born in that region! The last two generations appear to cluster around Lanarkshire particularly for the second name. Again not surprisingly, the 4th generation was born in Lanarkshire and his mother came from that region. The final 5th generation was born in New Zealand, but in a region settled predominantly by Scots and Irish. My own name (not plotted or given) follows a similar localization in the second name.

 

In summary, no claims are made in this admittedly non-scientific evaluation, but I am impressed at how good this method is at predicting ancestral origin.