Image designed and made available by http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

The Seven Pillars of a One-Name Study is a book that published by the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2012.  The book provides guidance of how to proceed with a study. Given the book is a decade old, it is a little dated and there is perhaps a reviewed sense of member benefits, and some elements that are worthy of consideration before focusing on the pillars.

Image created by Melody McKay Burton for Guild of One-Name Study 2019 from Surname Research Guide

Whilst the title suggests that the pillars or steps are linear, they are more of a continuum, as this revised illustration hopes to portray.

The beginning of a study, tends to focus on what is called collect, but I prefer to refer to it as gather. It is not necessarily correct that this has to be the starting point, and it may well be that other factors present themselves meaning that the focus shifts from gather to analysis for example.

There is some overlap on several of these, in particular the last four. Communicate was originally referred to as respond, and linked to the responsibility of responding to all enquiries. Instead, communicate references the other ways people might contact a study, which includes social media. 

Developing a process of working through data, adding to software as well as looking at analysis and synthesis of that data. Encouragement is given to maintaining a research log, and to do lists. There is not a huge amount of process, but I do appreciate that it might appear that way when you first undertake a study, which also includes time management, citations and sources.

I have written about this previously, you can find those articles HERE and a number of these elements, along with examples can be found in the Introduction of One-Name Studies course.