I’ve missed Saturday nights while we’ve been cruising, so it’s great to feel like I’m back in the swing of things with Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Randy Seaver has posted this week’s challenge on Genea-Musings.

Using our genealogy software program (RootsMagic for me), we are to figure out how many different surnames (and how many total surnames) we have in our database and then share the results.

The Surnames Statistics report for my tree is 38 pages long, which would include about 1,785 names. However, “Unknown” is in the list and a few given names show up, too, so I’d say there are about 1,700 unique surnames.

My top 20 surnames, followed by number of people and first and last dates associated with the name) are:

Adams (133) (1619-2008)
Carlisle (100) (1758-2009)
Coleman (86) (1739-2017)
Tarbox (80) (1612-1984)
Hicks (78) (1602-1955)
Green (73) (1530-1982)
Bucknam (72) (1602-1879)
Molin (69) (1700-1908)
Haskell (66) (1575-1869)
Wilson (63) (1742-1919)
Scerbak (62) (1820-2011)
Brown (62) (1580-1939)
Burt (60) (1568-1897)
Parker (57) (1650-2001)
Patorai (56) (1810-1995)
Wheeler (51) (1565-1728)
Lakin (51) (1570-1807)
Smith (50) (1603-2004)
Pratt (49) (1535-1951)
Scripture (47) (1650-1921)

My surnames are almost all colonial New England, with the exceptions of Molin (Öved, Sweden) and Scerbak and Patorai (both Udol, Slovakia).

David Stufflebean’s top 20 surnames are:

Williams (747) (1660-1987)
Miller (158) (1759-2008)
Pryor (130) (1715-1997)
Baker (109) (1778-2003)
Stufflebean (95) (1756-2005)
Nation (89) (1700-2012)
Mahon (64) (1780-1946)
Woodruff (1) (1604-1885)
Spear (61) (1686-1924)
Smith (60) (1798-1955)
Brasher (58) (1674-1991)
Bandy (50) (1715-1969)
Thompson (45) (1740-1946)
Sturgell (45) (1823-2014)
Lewis (45) (1720-1920)
Robertson (42) (1755-1930)
Peavler (41) (1730-1963)
Alberty (39) (1740-1923)
Wooldridge (37) (1678-1882)
Hendricks (36) (1720-1916)

Dave’s lines are all exclusively southern, with the exception of the Nations and Woodruffs, who lived in colonial New Jersey before migrating to North Carolina and South Carolina, respectively,  before the American Revolution.

There really aren’t any surprises in the numbers of either list for me, as the higher number of people with the surnames represent my success, or lack thereof, in tracing the family back further in time.