Created by Julie Goucher, 2023

Those of you who have been reading this site for a while may well recognise the image I shared a few days ago of the Seven steps of a One-Name Study. The third step is Synthesis and today we are going to explore what that means.

Synthesis is essentially taking the results of analysis and going a stage further, by giving some substance to your data, drawing conclusions about your surname.

You can do this by

• Exploring the meaning of your surname.
• Looking at the geographical origin of your surname – you might look at surname distribution maps for this stage.
• How and where possible variants to your surname came from.
• Looking at patterns of distribution – considering patterns of emigration and immigration, what caused those patterns of migration and was the migration permanent.

All these are discussed in the Pharos introduction to One-Name Studies course and in the Guild publication, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Art of a One-Name Study, available from the Guild.

Over the next two days we are going to be thinking and understanding surnames in more depth, so I do hope you will continue to read along and perhaps share any instances that you have come across and your thoughts.