Research Your Surname and Your Family Tree

by Graeme Davis

Find out what your surname means and trace your ancestors who share it too. Perhaps your surname is that of a Norman who came to Britain after the Battle of Hastings; or a Celtic clan name. Maybe it is an old English trade. It may be distinctive of a particular location. And just possibly you might be related to everyone who bears the name. Find out! Your surname is part of you - so use this book to discover what it really means. This comprehensive book will show you how to research your surname and your family tree, both in earliest and in more recent years. It provides practical activities to investigate the meaning of any British surname. You will discover: - The meaning of your surname - How old it is - Where it comes from - What associations it has today - How to use your surname to trace ancestors You may also be able to take part in a One Name Study or use DNA profiling to make contact with other people who bear your surname and with whom you share distant ancestors.

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2010

About the author

Dr. Graeme J. Davis (born 1965) is an English linguist at the University of Buckingham. He holds a PhD in Anglo-Saxon from the University of St Andrews. He has lectured at the Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Northumbria and the Open University.

He is tutor for the University of Buckingham’s Stonehenge MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and is editor of The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics, which has developed from earlier journals edited by Dr. Davis, including Journal of Language and Linguistics and Lingua et Linguistica. He is series editor of two Peter Lang monograph series, Contemporary Studies in Descriptive Linguistics and Studies in Historical Linguistics. He is also academic advisor to the Fara Heim project for academic research around the history and archaeology of Hudson Bay and the Canadian Arctic.

His research interests include the mediaeval Germanic languages and cultures of the North Atlantic region. His book Contemporary Studies in Old English and Old Icelandic was supported by a British Academy research grant and by the University of Iceland. The Early English Settlement of Orkney and Shetland examines the cultural and linguistic background of the Northern Isles, while Vikings in America sets out the story of the Norse discovery and settlement of North America. Lexicographic work includes Dictionary of Surrey English, while the discipline of surname study has been developed in Research Your Surname and Your Family Tree. An author of more than two dozen books and dozens of articles, Dr. Davis has produced both primary research and popular accounts which seek to make scholarship accessible to a wide audience.