Torrens Families Genealogy Miscellaneous records
Biography Photographs Youghal Bann Valley Torrens Books Torrens: Miscellaneous Forest of Dean pet-friendly holiday cottage to let

Ulster, 1630. Several Muster Rolls exist. I know of three which have been transcribed and are available as plain text:

• Muster Roll of the County of Donnagall, as published in the Donegal Annual
• Muster Roll of the Mercers company
• Muster Roll of the British on the Ironmonger's Estate, as published in J W Kernohan's 'County Londonderry in three centuries'

The lists are plain ASCII text files, with TAB characters or speces to separate the columns. Let me know if you have problems reading them.

Names frequency analysis

Since I had these names transcribed on the computer, I thought it might be instructive to do a name count - to analyse the frequency of names occurring in these rolls. This page is to explain these, to allow you to download the actual counted data and to offer a few comments.

• Analysis of Sunames
• Analysis of Fornames

I've not included the original lists here but could do so.

My own interest is in the surname Torrens - a John Torrenc and a Mungo Torents are listed in the Donegal list, but it is believed they returned to Scotland. I will therefore offer a few comments on the forenames.

I analysed some 1300+ names

Note that 398 of them are John. An astonishing 30%. No wonder the name John is of zero genealogical value and virtually untraceable!

Next commonest is William (11.4%) and Robert (9.2%). Interestingly, William is rare in my own group from the Bann valley.

I'm sure you can do the rest of the calculations for yourselves!

Top of page

Page Information