Julie Goucher ~ Anglers Rest

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Having decided to work on a One-Name or surname study you will want to be as well informed as possible in terms of methodology, ideas, hints, tips, tricks and everything in between.

The Guild offers seminars to members and non-members alike for a reasonable fee. In the main they are recorded with those being available to members only. We have just launched a webinar series and you read about those at the website. They will be available to non-members for a short period before becoming a members only benefit.

Each year there is a Guild conference and again the sessions are generally recorded and made available to members only.

There is a book that I hearterly recommend, The Surnames Handbook by Guild member Debbie Kennett and is available from the Guild and Amazon. There is also the Guild publication, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: Art of a One-Name Study,again available from Guild and Amazon.

Also the Pharos Introduction to One-Name Studies course which runs usually twice a year and lasts for five weeks. It is totally offered online and global members are encouraged.

I will be back with other One-Name and surname research posts in the future and if you did find this series useful,or would like me to cover a particular topic, then please leave a comment.

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The ability to publicise a study, publish material and preserve a study are very much entwined.

The best way of advertising your study is to share information and talk about the fascinating characters we meet as we build our studies. We can share information in a variety of ways, from writing articles, comments on social media and even with a DNA project.

The Guild has a wonderful project called the Members’ Website Project (MWP) – this is the ability for those members of the Guild with a registered study to host a website on the Guild’s website. The study can continue to be worked on and at the same type is preserved. You can see a full list of studies that are currently within the MWP here

In addition to a website blogs are a common feature of a number of One-Name researchers  and the ability to reach others as it shares across social media. Over the years this blog has been in existence I have shared elements of my own genealogical research and of my studies, and currently I have a blog for each of my studies. Over the coming months I may rethink that approach and share snippets here or I may elect to keep things as they are, there are pros and cons for both approaches.

A number of members, me included have published articles about their study in broad terms, individuals within their study as articles with some going a step further and publishing a book about their study. The Guild offers the option to archive a set of papers, files, Gedcom’s, certificates within the Guild’s library, of which there are two. One size does not fit all and members can choose which service to use and they can use more than one. Being a belts and braces kind of girl, that is my preferred option and I also have an archive of material myself. It is even possible to preserve a blog, and at that is one of the benefits for retaining a blog for each study because the blog can be exported and deposited with the Guild library.

Whether you have been working on your study for a number of years or are new to the concept, do take time to consider how you might publish & preserve your work. There can be nothing more sad than to hear that someone spent a lifetime on research and after their demise the entire lot was simply discarded. Whilst it would be possible for someone else to reconstruct the same study there would most certainly be elements that could not be gathered again. With the issues around Data Protection countries like New Zealand have changed the access to some documents and the same has happened in some States in the US.

A number of these elements are covered in both the Pharos Introduction to One-Name Studies course and the book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Art of One-Name Studies published by the Guild of One-Name Studies.

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One of the Guild commitments expected of study registrants is to respond to all enquires received. In fact study holders like nothing more than talking about their study and sharing the gems they have discovered. They too, welcome submissions to the study.

All registered studies with the Guild have a profile page and I always encourage fellow members and those at the beginning of their study to set up the profile. I shared a number of them a little earlier in this series, and you can read that post here. The profile page sits on the Guild website and the profile will be displayed if the surname searched for is registered. Profiles can be updated at anytime. On the profile page is a link to a website, should the study have one, the Surname DNA project and the means to contact the study holder.

If a member has not registered their study they may list their surname interests and these are where the member has substantial work on a surname in either a particular place or perhaps they are not at the point of wanting to register. However, registration of the surname does yield certain benefits, such as Study Profile page, access to the Guild’s Members Website Project and participation in the Guild’s Marriages challenges. Essentially, a Profile page is the shop window of your study and without registration and the profile page how will people know you are beginning your One-Name and surname research journey?

Without sounding fanatical, you need to work your study, by that I mean advertise it, share information from the study with the wider genealogical community. Take advantage of the Guild’s offering, a website and profile page, write articles and blog posts. The power of social media is tremendous, so please do not overlook it. Over the years I have talked and written about my studies and have had a number of articles published in both the Journal of One-Name Studies and Family Tree Magazine (UK).

We delve into this element of advertising and promoting your study in the Pharos Introduction to One-Name Studies course and there are a number of sections in the book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Art of One-Name Studies published by the Guild of One-Name Studies.

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One of the elements of drawing conclusions is understanding the meaning of the surname.

Surname are typically formed from the following, withe those in bold the most common:

• Patronymic – based on the given name of a male ancestor and is the male equivalent of a Matronymic surname.
  • Jones, Erickson, Williams
• Matronymic – based on the given name of a female ancestor and is the female equivalent of Patronymic. These are less common that the male equivalent.
  • Megson, Babbs,Parnell
• Genitive –
  • Manners, Squires,
• Locative – based on a place or area
  • Redhill, Newton
• Occupational
  • Butcher, Baker, Thatcher
• Nicknames
  • Redhead, Toogood, Fox

Surname with multiple origins may well have multiple meanings. Other considerations are that language, French and Latin has influenced English surnames.

Italian surnames are different again and can be broken down into these core groups:

Pet names, Botanical names, those reflecting kinship, geographical, names relating to animals, insects, fish, birds, occupational, objects, those reflecting desirable or undesirable traits and Compound names, which are surname made up of more than one word. I will come back to Italian surnames in another post at a later date, after this initial series has finished.

In this section too you can look at events that might affect families, such as illegitimacy and foundlings. One thing you might also seek to understand is how much more work you have to do in a particular country or record set. By using a spreadsheet to track marriages for example for England and Wales you will be able to see how many marriages you still need to access.

If your surname is one that is generally speaking common in one or more regions, then you may choose to analyse the stray examples.

Further elements are covered in the Pharos Introduction to One-Name Studies course as well as reading Seven Pillars: The Art of a One-Name Study published by the Guild of One-Name Studies.

Meanwhile, I’ll be back tomorrow talking about communications linked to our studies.