Members of the Guild, when registering a surname commit to collating material about a given surname on a global basis.
The Guild has a substantial body of index material, all created by members with the ethos of members helping members.
One of the early steps I encourage those undertaking the Introduction to One-Name StudiesIntroduction to One-Name Studies (901) course is to search the marriage indexes – now the Guild has three such marriage indexes, but at some point the marriage indexes will be merged.
The reason I promote the marriage index is the other party in the marriage might be a Guild registered name and therefore there is opportunity to engage in information swap.
When the registered the surname Butcher it was 2016 I think, I searched the marriage indexes as I had connecting those Butcher entries to another study. For example, the Howes Study had a number of Howes/House marriages with the name of Butcher. I swapped what material I had and the registrant for the Howes study did the same. We went a step further, in addition to citing the actual source, we also named as a source each other’s study – providing the opportunity to pollinate across the studies.
