Created by Julie Goucher, 2023

I am hopeful that the various posts over the course of the A-Z Challenge, which has been about surnames, surname research and registering a One-Name Study has been enjoyable and given you plenty of scope for ideas and thoughts.

You can see all the posts I have written about surname research HERE and there is a small list of other writings about One-Name Studies and surnames that featured under Writing about your One-Name Study

So what to do next if you are enthused about One-Name Studies and surnames:

• Visit the One-Name Studies website and perhaps
• Join the Guild of One-Name Studies and see what the organisation offers
• Sign up for the Pharos Course – Introduction to One-Name Studies the course runs over five weeks and you will broadly learn:
  • About One-Name Studies
    • History of One-Name Studies
    • Why have a One-Name Study
    • How suitable is my surname
    • Introduction to the Guild of One-Name Study
    • Getting started
  • Surnames and their history
    • How did surnames start?
    • An introduction to common meanings & deviations of British Surnames
      • Non-British surnames
    • Changes, spellings, deviations, Other pitfalls for the unwary
      • Deviants and Variants
    • Surname Distribution & Migration
    • Importance of individual surname studies
  • Core records you will need and information gathering
    • What are core records?
    • Civil Registration records and indexes in the British & Ireland
    • Indexes to the Census
    • Family Search, will indexes and other readily available indexes
    • Data Capture
    • Measuring your progress
    • Organising your One-Name Study 
  • Analysing and making sense of your data
    • Introduction to analysis
    • Designing spreadsheets
    • Family reconstruction
      • Software for a One-Name Study
    • Migration & linking people to places
    • Finding missing data
    • Drawing conclusions
  • Practical aspects of running your own One-Name Study
    • Registering a study with the Guild
    • Ethics
    • Data Protection
    • Publishing your study
      • Facebook Groups & pages
    • Preserving your study
    • Organising your time
• Purchase a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The art of a One-Name Study.
  • Available from the Guild

I teach all three of the Pharos surname and One-Name Studies courses and have two studies, one is a Surname whose origins are typically British and the other is for an Italian surname.

The chances are you have been undertaking a study and not necessarily realising that it is a One-Name Study, you can read more HERE. Whether you are new to the concept or have been undertaking a surname research project for a while why not consider your aims for your study.

The next Pharos Introduction course begins 9 July 2024 and you can sign up HERE

I hope you have enjoyed the A-Z series as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Over the course of the last month I have promised I would come back to several topics and plan to do that over the coming weeks.