All Guild members with a registered study sign up to aiming to make their study global. Over recent years a number of people have expressed concern about the global aspect & commitment. There is no pressure to be global and never has been. Members simply have to agree that they will be global at some point.

Depending on the surname and the geographical spread of the surname being studied, some members will be more global quicker than others. As I have already talked about my Italian Orlando study was global from the beginning and the Butcher study too is already global, although I have not finished the UK. If you are in the US and the same is European, perhaps German or Italian in origin then you are going to be global from the beginning, but it could take you, depending on your initial State focus ten years to leave the US and that is fine.

Most of us start our One-Name study from our own research, in the case of the Butcher study I had individuals in my own ancestry who had migrated to Australia and Canada, so those individuals were my catalyst into those respective Countries. I talked about focus points of the Italian study just recently.

All our studies are individuals, sure there will be overlap with others who are researching large studies or Italian studies but the structure of my studies will be different to others, despite there being similarities.

So if you are concerned about the globalisation of your One-Name and surname research don’t be. Register and establish your aims, focus, methodology and then decide where geographically you are going to start. Beginning is the hardest part and then the rest is easy!