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Home: Surnames:
Goddard Family Genealogy Forum
  
Think about it!
Eye, hair and skin colour are genetically inherited. Family name is culturally inherited. Barring what are politely called non-paternal events family name will be linked only to the Y-chromosome which carries very little genetic information. Almost all genetic information is carried on the other chromosomes and a child will inherit from both parents. There is, therefore, no reason to expect people of the same family name to share some specific set phenotypic characteristics - not even siblings.
The geographical origin aspect of Beth's post is, however, quite interesting. Some time ago I plotted the distribution of hits on the LDS for the last 4 decades of the 16th century - more or less the first 4 decades of English and Welsh parish registers. (Yes I know this methodology has a number of weaknesses but it provided a useful guide.) My expectation was to find a cluster of hits in Wiltshire, which seems to have the greatest historical frequency of the name, and a decreasing density of hits as one got further away. I did indeed find a strong cluster in that part of the world although in fact it also included Berkshire & Hampshire (I now tend to call this the Wessex cluster). There were also clusters in East Anglia (Norfolk and Suffolk), Leicestershire, Yorkshire and London with smaller numbers of hits in other counties. The London cluster is probably not significant in terms of origins as the capital attracted migrants from the rest of the country. It seemed to me that there were 4 main Goddard families. I have since read some suggestions that the Norfolk family was a branch of the Wessex cluster. It's also possible that there were some other families which didn't become so numerous.
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