Help:Surname

A surname is the family name or last name of a person.

For information on creatign Surname pages, use the links below:
 * Genealogy:Surname category template
 * Genealogy:Surname in place

Introduction
There is (or is intended to be) for each surname a separate category, which in turn is a subcategory of the category for surnames in general. Edit the category link at the bottom of the individual's page to state that person's surname. For example Percy Stanley Marks (1911-1988) has a at the bottom of the page. This leads to the Category:Marks Surname. Another example is Category:Blackman Surname.

If the category for that surname does not already exist, you will be asked to edit a new page. There is a Surname Template, which you may use. Copy the text from the box into your edit window. The text included at the end of the surname template automatically links this category up to the Surname Category. You may then add a line or two specific to the category, such as "Very common surname in Shropshire."; if you want to write several paragraphs about that surname, please create an article for it (also in the category) so that the lists of subcategories and articles don't get pushed too far down the category page.

Finding surnames
The "Search" function is not perfect. To find a particular surname category out of the hundreds or thousands, browsing though the whole of Category:Surnames is not appealing unless your target name comes early in the "A's". We are planning a work-around for this. Until it is working, one option is a simple search using the surname; but if that produces a very long list of pages try this:
 * http://genealogy.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixindex&from=Z&namespace=14, then you should see a box with "Display pages with prefix:"; if (as is likely) you've seen enough "Z" categories, replace the Z by whatever initial letter or group of letters you like and hit Enter; if the resulting list is too long for comfort, add another letter to the group in the box and try again. This search is not restricted to surnames, but most of our categories are surnames.

(The same trick works for other namespaces - just change the final "14" to another number. We may repeat this hint in other places relating to other namespaces that produce long hitlists.)

Shortcut for the above process
(This list can be expanded ad infinitum, but for maximum convenience each initial should be broken into separate pages when it gets to be longer than a couple of screens. No need to subdivide just to look uniform if a link produces less than a screenful of names.)

A | Ap | Ar | As | At | Au |

B | Bl | Bo | Br | Bu | By |

C | Co | Cr | Cu |

D | Di | Do | Dr | Du |

E |

F |

G |

H | Ho | Hu | Hy |

I |

J |

K |

L |

M | Mo | Mu | My |

N |

O |

P |

Q |

R |

S | St | Su | Sw |

T |

U |

V |

W |

X |

Y |

Z |

Alternative spellings
Where you are familiar with alternative spellings (eg White/Whyte), please note them on the category page and if possible link to those categories. Other readers may not have known of the alternatives or thought to look there.