The Surnames Handbook

I've just received an advance copy of my new book The Surnames Handbook from the History Press. It's very exciting to see it in print at long last and it is looking really good. The book is now available from the History Press and should be arriving in bookshops, Amazon and other online stores in the next week or so. It will be a few more months before it becomes available in the US, Australia and other countries and I don't yet have a firm publication date. There will also be a Kindle edition.

This is essentially the book that I would have liked to have had available when I started out on my own surname research. It's intended as a practical guide to all the different aspects of surname research, but I've also provided some background on surnames in general, drawing on the research from all the many different disciplines that are now involved in surname research, emphasising in particular the contribution that can be made by the family historian. The focus is on surnames of  the British Isles. I would very much have liked to have written more but I was restricted to a maximum of 85,000 words and I ran out of both space and time! The book includes links to hundreds of relevant websites, an extensive bibliography, and numerous detailed appendices with information on all the essential resources for a surname study both online and offline. The text is supported by a long list of 190 references. The contents are listed below. I hope you like it!

Foreword by Derek Palgrave, President of the Guild of One-Name Studies 

Introduction 

Chapter 1: The history of surnames

Chapter 2: The classification of surnames 

Chapter 3: Variants and deviants 

Chapter 4: Surname mapping 

Chapter 5: Surname frequency 

Chapter 6: Has it been done before? 

Chapter 7: Laying the foundations - the key datasets 

Chapter 8: Surname origins - pre-1600 resources 

Chapter 9: DNA and surnames 

Chapter 10: One-name studies 

Appendices 

Appendix A: Genealogy websites 

Appendix B: Surname websites 

Appendix C: Lay subsidy rolls 

Appendix D: Organisations and journals 

Appendix E: Linguistic resources 

Appendix F: Place-name resources 

Appendix G: Population statistics 

Bibliography

© Debbie Kennett 2012