roger.pape Site Admin
Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 414 Location: Liverpool, NY
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:05 pm Post subject: Where are they now? |
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As we know, the Frerking family originated in the area of Germany now known as Niedersachsen (formerly the province of Hanover). Over the years, they emigrated from there to various areas around the world, most notably to Lafayette County, Missouri. It is interesting to see were the largest concentration of Frerking families are now.
Geographers at University College London have developed a website at http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/ that graphically illustrates the distribution of a surname around the world. While they compiled their statistics primarily from phone directories and other public records for only a subset of all countries of the world (26), it gives a relatively good view of this distribution, particularly for European names.
If you go to this website, enter Frerking in the surname box, and click on ‘Search’, you will find some interesting results as shown below. (For the larger regions, the FPM column indicates the Frequency Per Million.)
Top Cities:
Concordia , Missouri , United States
Rodewald , Niedersachsen , Germany
Kansas City , Missouri , United States
Karlsruhe , Baden-Württemberg , Germany
Hannover , Niedersachsen , Germany
Springfield , Missouri , United States
Neustadt , Niedersachsen , Germany
Beatrice , Nebraska , United States
Münster , Nordrhein-Westfalen , Germany
Higginsville , Missouri , United States
Top Regions:
Area Name FPM
Missouri , United States 48.54
Nebraska , United States 23.61
Niedersachsen , Germany 22.88
Kansas , United States 14.18
Alaska , United States 9.03
New Mexico , United States 8.52
Hamburg , Germany 8.23
Iowa , United States 7.64
South Dakota , United States 6.1
District Of Columbia , United States 5.23
Top Countries:
Country FPM
Germany 3.7
United States 2.47
Argentina 0.32
As with any set of statistics, the results depend on the size of the grouping. But note that Concordia, Missouri has the highest percentage of Frerkings for any city in the world. For areas the size of a state, Missouri has the highest concentration. In terms of countries of the world, Germany still has the highest percentage of Frerkings. (Surprisingly, there is a comparatively high concentration in the area around Buenos Aries, Argentina.)
If you are interested in the counties where the largest concentrations are, click on the map to go to a country and then to a state. Note that Missouri and Nebraska have the highest concentrations of Frerkings in the U.S. The leading county in Missouri is, of course, Lafayette Co. followed by various surrounding counties. In Nebraska, most of the Frerkings appear to live in Gage Co. south of Lincoln.
You might also be interested in tracing other names in your family tree. Note, however, that this website requires exact spelling. For example, you will get different results for Kappelman vs. Kappelmann. Another examle is Stuenkel vs. Stunkel. The Stuenkel family that moved from the Concordia area to Kansas dropped the umlaut and a high concentration of Stunkels can be found in Palmer Co., KS. So, if a family changes the spelling of its name, you will not get an accurate comparison of the related families. |
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