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Question:what country? what ethnic group?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: what country? what ethnic group?

My uncle married Anne Elizabeth Burnham born in Mansfield Nottinghamshire in 1865, they married in 1888.
This is what www.ancestry.com has to say about the name Burnham,
Burnham
English: habitational name from any of several places called Burnham. Those in Buckinghamshire (Burnham Beeches), Norfolk (various villages), and Essex (Burnham-on-Crouch) are named with Old English burna ‘stream’ + ham ‘homestead’. In the case of Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, however, the second element is Old English hamm ‘water meadow’, while Burnham in Lincolnshire is named from brunnum, dative plural of Old Norse brunnr ‘spring’, originally used after a preposition, i.e. ‘(at) the springs’.
hope this helps.

I was glancing at the New York passenger list and there were 3070 named Burnham. Their ethnicities were listed as American, English, German, Hungarian. If I kept searching I would probably find more.

The same name can frequently can come from more than one national origin. Not everyone with the same name are necessarily related or shares ancestors, even those of the same national origin. When surnames were taken during the last melennium, legtimate sons of the same man could have wound up with different surnames but they each shared their surnames with those with whom they were not related.

The ending "ham" usually refers to the Germanic hamlet. The Anglo, Saxon and Jutes that were among the many peoples that made up the English population were a Germanic people.

Rootsweb(free site) has over 73,000 entries in family trees for Burnham. Just pull up the site and put Burnham or a complete name in the World Connect Block. If you see something that interest you, probe on a name and it will give you the name and email address of the submitter.

Just don't take as absolute fact everything you see in famiy trees on any website, free or paid. The information is user submitted and mostly not documented or poorly documented. Even if you see the same information repeatedly by many different submitters, that is no guarantee it is accurate. A lot of people copy without verifying.

The really best way to know your heritage is to trace it, starting with yourself and working back. Anytime you wish to do this, there are lots of good people on this board that can give you some great tips and advice. Just ask.

See the link below from the most prestigious genealogical organization in the U. S., The National Genealogical Society.

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerp...

There is no one "Burnham family". Everyone with the same name, will not be related. Nor will they all be the same ethnic group.
A name MIGHT have a "accepted" place where it comes from, then again, it might not. It is not the same thing as finding YOUR family lineage.