Does your surname link you to royalty – or does it mark out your ancestors as fools, philanderers – or just plain ugly? From the common (Smith), unusual (Bonehill) to the downright bizarre (Gotobed), ...

THERE is perhaps room for a new history of British surnames since Bardsley and Harrison published their works on the subject. Mr. Ewen has given his history a wider scope than Bardsley and has brought ...

Research led by University of Leicester geneticists, comparing the DNA of 150 pairs of men who share British surnames, has shown that about a quarter of pairs are linked genetically. Their findings ...

Researchers have shown that men with the same British surname are highly likely to be genetically linked. The results of the research have implications in the fields of forensics, genealogy, ...

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The origins of some last names are pretty self-explanatory, whether it's Baker, Shepherd or even Rotten. But many surnames make no sense at all, at least not to the average Joe without a degree in Old ...

The presence of Africans in Britain has been recorded since Roman times, but has left no apparent genetic trace among modern inhabitants. Y chromosomes belonging to the deepest-rooting clade of the Y ...

Surname type Occupation Some of the more obvious origins of surnames come from the occupation that their ancestors held – and they remain some of the most commonly held surnames in the UK today. Smith ...