Surnames, DNA, and Family History UK ed. Edition

by George Redmonds (Author), Turi King (Author), David Hey (Author)

45 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0199582648

ISBN-10: 0199582645

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This book combines linguistic and historical approaches with the latest techniques of DNA analysis and shows the insights these offer for every kind of genealogical research. It focuses on British names, tracing their origins to different parts of the British Isles and Europe and revealing how
names often remain concentrated in the districts where they first became established centuries ago. In the process the book casts fresh light on the ancient peopling of the British Isles. The authors consider why some names die out while others spread across the globe. They use recent advances in
DNA testing to investigate whether particular surnames have single, dual, or multiple origins, and to find out if the various forms of a single name have a common origin. They show how information from DNA can be combined with historical evidence and techniques to distinguish between individuals
with the same name and different names with similar spellings, and to identifty the name of the same individual or family spelt in various ways in different times and places.

The final chapter of this paperback edition, looking at the use of genetics in historical research, has been updated to include new work on the DNA of Richard III.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Enthralling and compulsively readable, this book combines linguistics with genetics, genealogy, and local history to provide a fresh and eye-opening vision of the British past -- and indeed of family histories across a wider world. Focusing on the history of British surnames it casts a totally new
light on what makes us who we are -- and how we can find out. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in their roots, this book offers nothing less than a new perspective on British history." --Michael Wood, historian and broadcaster

"This approachable volume on British family names bridges revisionist genealogy and new genetic research in historical linguistics...well-presented." --eLanguage

About the Author

George Redmonds is a freelance historian, specialising in Names Studies and Local History. He has lectured widely in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand and in 2001 presented the BBC Radio 4 series 'Surnames, Genes and Genealogy'. His numerous books include Surnames and Genealogy (1997)
and Names and History (2004).

Turi King read Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge before undertaking her MSc and PhD in genetics at the University of Leicester. For the past ten years her research has focused on the link between surnames and genetics and its applications in the fields of forensics,
epidemiology, genealogy and population history.

David Hey is Emeritus Professor of Local and Family History at the University of Sheffield. He is President of the British Association for Local History and the Chairman of the British Record Society. His numerous books include The Oxford Companion to Family and Local History ( third edition, 2008).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; UK ed. edition (December 17, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199582645
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199582648
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.14 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 0.9 x 6.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,364,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,241 in Genetics (Books)
- #5,258 in Linguistics (Books)
- #6,097 in Genealogy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
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Kappavpi

Exhaustive Detail about SOME Names

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2013

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If you are looking up this book you're probably most interested in the use of DNA testing to trace surnames. This subject is finally discussed in more detail near the end of the book, and there are a few interesting points there. However, to arrived at that point, you must make your way through a thick forest of other information -- exhaustive explanations about a particular collection of surnames. That's nice if you happen to have any of these surnames in your family or if you could use the book like a dictionary and reference certain surnames at will. It is also a bit interesting if you're interested in history in general. But mostly it was very tiring reading so much information and waiting for something to come up that might relate to either my own family's surnames (which never did) or about actual DNA testing, which was very little.

3 people found this helpful

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Hound

This book is King of DNA Genealogy!

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2020

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Nominative Determinism,
if appropeaux,
one may imagine,
it could nominate Dr. Turi King to be determined Genealogical Surname 'King of Genetic-Contact Tracing for Y-DNA'

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SCHOLARLY in capital letters!

Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2013

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Nice overview of how surnames came to be and information about the origins of hundreds of British Isles surnames, many dating back to the 1100s. Lots of referrals to other publications and websites so the reader can further explore specific names and families. If the book had gone just a little deeper into each surname mentioned, maybe only a sentence or two, I would have given it five stars.

4 people found this helpful

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Barry B.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2016

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an interesting book.

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mike40

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2012

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I was looking forward to reading this book for some help in tracing and explaining my own family surname, but I was rather disappointed. There is a great deal of information on a great number of individual surnames, much of which is of itself very interesting, but there is very little in the way of general principles that I could apply. At times, I felt the authors were more concerned in pointing out errors in the works of earlier writers who had investigated the particular surnames they chose. The DNA section was OK as a general introduction, but again was lacking in principles which might help one decide whether different lines with similar Y-DNA spectra could reasonably be expected to have a common ancestor.

13 people found this helpful

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Gayle H.

Valuable especially for genealogy!

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2016

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Helpful for genealogy but also interesting read. Redmonds is especially helpful and interesting.

One person found this helpful

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Russell F. Shaw

Genealogy and DNA

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2012

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Best in depth explanation of how Y-DNA analysis can solve those otherwise unsolvable genealogy problems. The authors obviously have a total handle on the subject and can explain a very complex situation to the average layperson. Throw away all other attempts to cover Y-DNA analysis. This is the reference book we have all been waiting for! Although the examples are all British surnames, the principles involved can be extrapolated to many genealogy 'brick wall" problems worldwide. Still in its infancy, Y-DNA analysis will become more important as more and more researchers become aware of its potential. Kudos to Redmonds, King and Hey. Russell Shaw.

5 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2017

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too early to determine

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Nicholas Casley

Who Was My Grandfather's Father?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2014

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The three authors of this book - George Redmonds, Turi King, and David Hey - all did their doctorates at Leicester University, but in widely differing subjects, thus allowing for the cross-disciplinary approach of this volume. Sir Alec Jeffreys is Professor of Genetics at the same university and has written the foreword. "This book," he says, "shows how DNA can identify clans of men sharing the same recent male ancestor, and can give tantalising clues about the age of a surname and levels of historical marital fidelity ... [but] the key message ... is the important of marrying history with genetics. So for those who would spend good money on sending a mouth swab off for Y chromosome testing ... I would strongly recommend that you read this book first."

The book has nine chapters. The twenty-page introduction, which from reading many other works by David Hey I assume to have been largely written by him, reviews previous research on surname formation and brings matters up to date. We read that one "clear conclusion is that, despite the increased mobility of modern times, most British families have still not moved far from the neighbourhoods that were familiar to their distant ancestors." The multi-disciplinary approach is again recommended: "it must be stressed that mapping surname distributions must be combined with other methods of enquiry," including linguistics, genealogy, local history and genetics.

Over the first few chapters we are taken on a journey that explores surname formation, their origins and development, their distribution and migration. Since both Hey and Redmonds have based much of their own research on their native Yorkshire and its adjacent counties, it is not surprising to find most examples - but by no means all - coming from that part of the country. Overall, the focus of the book is on England, but there are sometimes extensive forays into Wales, Scotland and Ireland too.

For those new to surname studies, much of what is written here will be new, but even I learned some surprising facts. For example, "The evidence shows quite clearly that whereas numerous hereditary surnames have become extinct ... others have proliferated to an extraordinary degree. Even more surprisingly, most of that proliferation appears to have taken place in a relatively circumscribed area of the Pennines. At its heart are the extensive parishes of Halifax and Rochdale." The authors demonstrate this by making comparisons with Cornwall and Sussex but they cannot come up with any definitive answer for its cause: as they say, "this phenomenon needs much more investigation."

I note that the presence of the surname `Singleton' in Sussex is thought to owe something to the Lancashire place-name, but the authors seem to have overlooked that Sussex too has a parish called Singleton. And when they write that, "Some other `Mc-` names were registered in and around southern ports - Plymouth, Portsmouth, Gravesend, and the Medway estuary - but few of these migrants had ventured far inland," I was struck by the fact that the reason for this may be because all are or were naval ports.

The first six chapters are, nevertheless, rigorous in their attempt to explain the latest research into surnames, using plenty of examples and delving deep into a number of other issues. Indeed, one case study about the Hepworths and the Black Death shows how such surname studies can also aid social and economic analysis.

Presumably written by Turi King, it is only the final three chapters that address the genetic element in any depth, and that is focussed on the Y chromosome in males. Whilst mention is made of the female equivalent of mitochondrial DNA, the subject is not further discussed. Whilst this is understandable in terms of surnames, the title of this book also includes the words `family history', and this reviewer wanted to learn more about this aspect.

Nevertheless we do learn that just as "a surname acts as a cultural marker of common ancestry, the Y chromosome should act as a biological marker." The text tried in some detail to tell this non-scientist how the tests all work (a glossary of terms would have been of assistance), but I appreciate it has to reduce what would be a whole textbook in itself down to a mere chapter. It lost me a little, but at least my intuitive understanding of family genetics received a welcome augmentation, and I can now understand what is meant of `haplogroups', `mutational events' and `genetic markers.'

Eight colour plates help illustrate the genetic results that are discussed, but a number of questions arose in the text that were not answered. (For example we are never given a list of all the surnames with their frequencies included in the study, so as to be able to draw our own conclusions.) The authors come up with some fascinating results, especially with regard to surname drift and surname ramifications, but "The bottom line is that while general trends exist, each surname has its own complex history."

Applying my own family tree's circumstances, I asked myself if genetics could provide an indication of the surname of my paternal grandfather's father. This grandfather was born illegitimate and took his mother's surname. The answer is that such analysis could provide such an indication. Another personal query was also answered, namely that deep-ancestry testing is problematical and not as clear-cut as some commercial companies may say.

This book, then, written by experts in their fields and as up-to-date as research presently has taken the links between surnames and genetics was of some personal use. But more than that, it offers a fascinating insight into what can be done and what may be able to be done in the future. On the cover of this book appears a blurb from historian and broadcaster Michael Wood: "Indispensable reading for anyone interested in their roots, this book offers noting less than a new perspective on British history." A little over-the-top perhaps, but not that far from the truth.

16 people found this helpful

Grogs

A fascinating update

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2012

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Anyone with an interest in the history of surnames and what DNA studies are revealing will find this a fascinating book, and it will also be a great interest to anyone concerned with the history of population in Britain. Its unifying theme is how the study of surnames, which used to be mainly based in the history of language, has been revolutionised by genealogy and DNA studies. These fields have had separate effects, but in the last 10 years or so have interacted strongly. The three authors are all leading experts in aspects of this. The individual chapters are not separately attributed, but the opening part develops the work that George Redmonds and David Hey have pioneered in the last 40 years, demonstrating from detailed examples how local history and genealogy can illuminate and correct conclusions from language studies about the history and meanings of classes of surnames and individual examples. There is an abrupt change half-way through, to a detailed description of how DNA works, and how Y chromosome and surname studies complement one-another. This is a difficult subject to explain, but I think that the authors (chiefly Turi King in this part presumably) do a very good job and do not shy away from dealing with important details. There are then fairly detailed summaries of key DNA studies, especially those which the University of Leicester team has been involved in, for individual names and populations, demonstrating the degree to which the Y chromosome haplotypes and surnames seem to be correlated in the British and Irish (but mainly English) populations. The book finishes with some tantalising glimpses of future possibilities, leaving me hoping that I live long enough to wonder at the results. The publisher (presumably) is also to be complemented at the quality of the illustrations, especially of the colour plates, which are important in understanding the arguments and examples. As I write this review I can't remember whether this book is available on Kindle. I am a Kindle fan, but I think this is a book which would be unsatisfactory in that medium, because of the need to refer repeatedly to the illustrations, and the importance of colour in them.

19 people found this helpful

M. Whiteside 'Eye of the beholder'

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