British Ancestry - Frequently Asked Questions

Spanish

Question:

My name is Carolina Hornsby-Diaz, I need details of my last names Hornsby from Scotland and Diaz which is from Spain, but I don't know about my Genealogy.

I live in Chile, and don't speak or write English very well.

Answer:

As is well known, many Spanish families went to the New World, particularly to South America. Equally, a good number of people from Great Britain, engineers in particular, and specially from Scotland, migrated to your part of the world as well. Whether these can be traced genealogically or not may prove a difficult question to answer. The surname Diaz is relatively common throughout Spain and it would be difficult to localise it, but Hornsbury derives from places or villages of the name in Lancashire, Westmorland and the North-Riding of Yorkshire, the first element deriving fron the ringing of bells or blowing of the horn or, more likely, from a spur or tongue of land on a bend, and the last simply being a Norse name for a township or settlement

To go further, you would need to have vital records for your first immigrants. Do return for advice once you have fuller details of names, relationships,dates, places and occupations.