| Abstract: | A meeting on surnames was recently held in Lyons, gathering searchers from different scientific horizons such as sociology, history, anthropology, demography and population genetics. We selected the six following papers because of their major interest to history of the family and history of populations. Surnames appear as an important and convenient tool for the study of marriage patterns or of geographical mobility. We also provide some general comments about the different uses of surnames in the current works in the field of historical demography and population genetics. We also mention some examples revealing the social significance of surnames in some specific historical context. |
