20 November 2016

Check Your British and Irish Surnames

Following on the announcement of the publication of Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland which I blogged here you can try it free online until the end of the month. Find out how at http://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/UWENews/news.aspx?id=3510.

6 comments:

Gail B said...

This is brilliant, John. I am a huge fan of Oxford University Press, but cynical that even they would get my rare surname right. Years of research by historians, genealogists, librarians (including humbly speaking, me) and cartographers have finally got it right. Older books always got it right.

Now OUP has it. One cannot type in fanbi and the password given until you subscribe to their site, but once there, it is fabulous. I have saved my file as a PDF online and will send to other family members here and in the UK researching the name.

Many thanks again, John.

Gail B

jon said...

Au contraire: no log in to OUP is needed, punch in fanbi and onlineaccess as the article states

it works just fine. Remember to click on the name to see the entire article.

Gail B said...

I meant, of course, Older books always got it wrong. Not right. Unlike Jon, I tried several times to just type in fanbi and password onlineaccess as you say; it would not let me do it. Even had my OUP author husband (a dab hand at the computer) try and no go. So, I am still pleased as can be, to be part of OUP as well as finding this site. I am also pleased Jon is better at this than am I. However one gets to it, it is great.

Gail B

Unknown said...

Unfortunately I can't seem to access this at all, either using John's or Gail's approaches. Just end up going in circles. Using Chrome as my browser. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Leslie Still

jon said...

Its all locked down now. It was good for a few days . . . sigh

Gail B said...

I agree. After a first highly successful foray which I luckily posted to friends and family with my rare surname, less luck the next day. I managed only to get a bit of printed info on another surname, and printed that out. No maps, nothing.

So I reviewed it all again, as posted, listened to the video carefully. Tried again. Uh uh. Then I found the names of the principal fellows in the video, found one has erased his email, but two others I kept, in order to email them again if my attempt this morning failed. It did. So, I won't bother. It appears that the contact as in fanbi is just not going to work.

I hope John D. Reid can unravel this for us.

Gail B