Searching for surname or place name

[dmart7]

Is there any way on this forum to search for a surname rather than its identical place name?  For example, if searching for surname Brenchley, most of the results are actually about Brenchley village in Kent.  Is there a way of searching to avoid this?  Thanks

[KGarrad]

Have you tried the Surnames Interest Board?
There's a link at the bottom of every RootsChat page.

[dmart7]

Thanks but I was looking for a means to read or join relevant forum discussions.  If I put in my surname (Martin), nearly all hits are about Martin the surname, which is great.  But another name of my interest is Brenchley: if I search for that, I must sift through hundreds or thousands which merely mention the village. 

[heywood]

Hello,

Do you mean that there are ‘hundreds or thousands’ of references to the place Brenchley on Rootschat or on genealogy forums in general.
Using the Surname interests board, as suggested already,  there are three or four people interested in Brenchley/Brenchly. Have you tried contacting those posters. You could post your interest there too.

You could always start a thread on here with regard to your own people. You could specify what information you have and anything you wish to search.

Regards
Heywood

[Tickettyboo]

Are you looking for the surname in a particular area?
You can filter by board  so either uncheck them all and then check the boards in the area you are interested in then search.
 OR you can just uncheck the Kent boards to try to filter out the place name and search on the rest of the boards.

Boo

[BushInn1746]

Is there any way on this forum to search for a surname rather than its identical place name?  For example, if searching for surname Brenchley, most of the results are actually about Brenchley village in Kent.  Is there a way of searching to avoid this?  Thanks

Hello

Welcome to Rootschat.

When we write a name of a place or person, there is no facility to specify whether it is a person or place name, in most places on the internet.

Say your Brenchley person was last known to be of Maidstone, you could type in, with commas "Brenchley of Maidstone" (also try changing 'of' for 'in' and 'at' when searching newspapers and elsewhere) as often writers refer to ancestors like that (but not always).

Also there may be Townships within a Town or Parish, also.

You might also try "Brenchley, Brewer" (surname followed by occupation, in commas).

Use inverted commas for bits that you think might appear together.

Some established landed families might be known by their County ... "John Brenchley County of York Gent" or "John Brenchley Co. of York"

Bear in mind these families may not be yours, but it is handy in research also to know other families live there with a same surname, as it may indicate that you may need to be extra careful to rule out some characters

Here is one I tried with commas on Google for "John Brenchley" ...
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp88617/john-brenchley

Mark

[hallmark]

Just untick  Kent  as already advised.

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[dmart7]

Thanks for replies.  Assuming Mark is correct, then no more replies or workarounds needed.  Some genealogical websites do search against surnames as well as or instead of places, so I was simply checking whether Rootschat did too.  Thanks again

[BushInn1746]

Don't assume anything in family history 

Mark