In an earlier post I talked about strategy, breaking it down into ten segments. Today I am going to write a about preserving your study which is essentially segment ten and the last in this particular series. You can read the strategy series HERE

I began all my studies, both relating surnames and places in the late 1980’s. Much of my work is on paper and my aim is to get all the material scanned and added to the relevant individual on my website. (I use Roots Magic for my genealogical programme and export a GEDCOM to TNG which populates on my website).

My website is with the Guild of One-Name Studies and is part of the Members’ Website Project. The project exists to preserve members studies after they are no longer members. At that point, the sites become a legacy sites and these are not updated.

There are other ways that you can preserve your work. The Guild offers surname profile pages and you can see my Orlando one here. Guild members have the option to have their profile retained by the Guild and identified as such. I have opted to have my profile page preserved.

I keep a regular back up schedule. I use Dropbox, Google Drive and currently I am using a USB stick to collate the images, photos and documents that are on my website. I shall then forward that stick to the Guild library. I also have an external hard drive and back everything up. I have also left written instructions so that items are given to particular individuals and they are retained within my family.

Thanks to the Guild, my actual genealogical data is preserved and it is so important to preserve your work, in case of your demise or some kind of disaster.

What are your preservation plans for the future? We do discuss this in more detail, in the Introduction to One-Name Studies Pharos Course