A study was undertaken to examine routinely recorded information on the births, marriages and deaths occurring in an extended population sharing the feature of a common surname. The material was obtained in quote form from the General Registry.

Simple manual analysis revealed a number of localities in which the ‘family’ was to be found and comparisons were made between vital events in each area over the period 1837–1960. An attempt was made to group bearers of the common surname by social class using the currently accepted convention.

Causes of death were coded according to the main headings of the classification introduced by the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1963. Variations in frequency of recording of different causes of death in different localities were found.

It is suggested that a more sophisticated study of populations composed of bearers of a shared surname might demonstrate a predictive value in terms of susceptibility or resistance to disease and thus become a recognized tool in the workshop of the geneticist.