Every genealogist will have come up against the proverbial ‘brick wall’ where a family line just vanishes into the past. Today, however, technology can sometimes provide invaluable clues thanks to crunching large amounts of data at the click of a mouse button.

The widest range of UK surname distribution maps available is at www.thegenealogist.co.uk, where you can plot surname maps based on either census or civil registration data.

Each has its advantages. Censuses plots will count pretty much everyone with a particular surname (including phonetic variants) alive at the time of the census – this works for all of those available for England and Wales, ie from 1841 to 1911.

Plotting BMDs for a single year will show far fewer numbers as of course it will only include events that happened in the actual year in question – but you can widen to show a year range (up to 15 years either way of a centre point) to bring in more people. Also, you can look at births, marriages and deaths individually, which can yield further clues. For example, deaths will tend to reflect older people, so are slightly more likely to indicate where the family originally came from. Births may conversely indicate where the family has started up in a new area. These are broad brush principles, of course – but if your ancestors have disappeared from civil or parish records, maps such as these might just jump-start your research again in a different part of the country.

Take a look at the various examples on these pages to see how powerful these tools can be. The census maps even work with keyword searches (ie without a surname), so you can track the growth or decline of a particular occupation, for example. To access the maps, use the site’s Master Search feature, searching for a forename, surname or keywords. Then pick a census in the filters at the left-hand side: under each census year there is a link marked ‘View a map of results’.

For the BMD maps, after performing your Master Search, select ‘Births & Baptisms’, ‘Marriages’ or ‘Deaths and Burials’ and click on the ‘Map’ link. Good luck with your plotting!