Issue 31.15
I was reading an article by Kimberly Powell, a genealogy expert. She had a list of the most common United States surnames by rank. Are you one of the millions of Americans with one of these most common surnames from the 1990 federal census? Number one on the list is Smith, an English surname belonging to an estimated 2,772,200 Americans! My grandmother’s second husband was a Smith, so I understand the challenges of researching the Smiths.
Number two is the English and Scottish name of Johnson. My sister’s family is included in the 2,232,100 Americans sporting that name. Three is Williams, an English and Welsh name with 1,926,200 on the 1990 census. Number four will make my father-in-law proud. The Jones name came in fourth with 1,711,200 of us on the census. Brown is number five. Chances are you have these names in your family. If so, they provide unique challenges to researching because there are a lot of men named James Smith and many of them married women named Margaret. It can be done, but you need to be more careful because of the coincidences of the same names in the same places at the same time. You might want to do a chart to add other clues such as addresses, birth place of parents, occupations, and anything that will help you figure out which John Jones is the correct ancestor.
Davis is the sixth rank, followed by Miller, Wilson, Moore and Taylor for the top ten. Anderson has many name origins, including Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and English. Anderson comes in at number 11. Thomas, Jackson, White, Harris, Martin, Thompson, Garcia, Martinez and Robinson are found in the top 20.
Now I will see how many of the rest of the surnames the Senior Sampler Editor can fit in my column this week. Number 21 is Clark, then Rodriguez, Lewis, Lee, Walker, Hall, Allen, Young, Hernandez, King, Wright, Lopez, Hill, Scott, Green, Adams, Baker, Gonzalez, Nelson, Carter, Mitchell, Perez, Roberts, Turner, Phillips, Campbell, Parker, Evans, Edwards, Collins, Stewart, Sanchez, Morris, Rogers, Reed, Cook, Morgan, Bell, Murphy, Bailey, Rivera, Cooper, Richardson, Cox, Howard, Ward, Torres, Peterson, Gray, Ramirez, James, Watson, Brooks, Kelly, Sanders, Price, Bennett, Wood, Barnes, Ross, Henderson, Coleman, Jenkins, Perry, Powell, Long, Patterson, Hughes, Flores, Washington, Butler, Simmons, Foster, Gonzales, Bryant, Alexander, Russell, Griffin, Diaz, and Hayes.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com