Overview

These instructions will show you how to generate a list of surnames along with the frequency with which they appear in Microsoft Excel files.

1. Save the file under a new name,
2. Delete all columns except for Surnames of the individual, mother and father,
3. Copy all of the surname entries into column A,
4. Sort column A alphabetically,
5. Select column A,
6. From the Data menu, select Subtotals..., and click OK (with the default settings):

   

   

7. Click the (newly created) column 2 on the extreme left hand side:

   

8. Select columns A and B
9. From the Edit menu, select Go To and click on the button labeled Special...

   

10. In the Go To Special dialog select Visible cells only and click OK

    

11. Now everything is highlighted and there are double lines under each cell,
12. Select columns A and B and do a Copy:

    

13. Insert a new page,
14. From the Edit menu, select Paste Special...
15. Select values and click OK
16. Perform a Find and Replace on " count", replacing it with nothing.

    

You may want to relabel the column headings (Surname for column A and Frequency for column B).

The data will be sorted by Surname, but you can now resort by Frequency if you want to.