Clan Rising

Clan & Surname Map

See where your family name comes from.

MacDonald in Lochaber. O’Neill in Tyrone. Tudor in Anglesey. See exactly where 497 family names come from, mapped tile by tile across Britain and Ireland, and by language tree across the Continent, from the German lands to the Spanish kingdoms.

Britain and Ireland

Mapped tile by tile

The deepest corner of the atlas: four nations, every region and county drawn, every family page tied to ground. Pick a nation below to enter its chapter.

England

England

The shires and the smoke, Anglo-Saxon tun-names, Norman feudal lines, London's melting pot, and the great post-Conquest surname pool of the English-speaking world.

Families
136
regions
42
Enter England →

Éire

Ireland

Four provinces, thirty-two counties, and a diaspora that outnumbers the island by ten to one. The land of the túatha and the chieftains, of the Plantations and the Famine emigrations, where the family name is half the inheritance.

Families
56
counties
32
Enter Ireland →

Alba

Scotland

From the Hebrides to the Borders: Highland clans, Norse-Gaelic earldoms, Lowland riding families and the great Glasgow-Edinburgh surname pool.

Families
71
tiles
42
Enter Scotland →

Cymru

Wales

The land of the cantref and the commote, a kingdom of patronymics, where Owain Glyndŵr was the last to be called Prince of Wales by his own people.

Families
34
tiles
17
Enter Wales →

The continent

Europe, by language tree

One interactive map of the whole continent, every castle, landmark and historic city in the atlas, plotted where it stands, with the families sourced to each country. Beyond Britain and Ireland the atlas files names not by modern state but by the language tree they came from, so a displaced East-Prussian or Volga-German name still files under German.

Now with names: German · French · Italian · Spanish · Portuguese · Dutch · Polish · Ukrainian · Greek · Swedish · Norwegian · Danish. 0 more language trees coming.

European families
191
Language trees
12
Explore Europe on the map →

Play As Your Clan

Adventure with your ancestors.

Pick your clan, pick a year, 500 to 1945, and land anywhere on the map you’re looking at. An open-world story written around you, turn by turn. First chapter free.

Begin the adventure →

Historic Places, Rebuilt

Don’t just map it. Explore it.

The map ties every name to ground. We rebuild that ground as photoreal reconstructions from history: stand in the towns and clan castles your family came from and look all the way around. Free, in your browser.

All walks & castles →

Games

Take the field for your clan.

The atlas is also a board. Steer your crowd, gun down the rival horde and conquer the real map of Britain and Ireland as your own surname in Clan Conquest, free, in your browser, no download.

Play the games →

The atlas grows one people at a time, so the geography of every surname holds up against the documentary record. If your name or country isn’t mapped yet, tell us which to do next.