Preserving your study

It is good practice for a one-namer to document their research and to secure the resultant ONS data accumulated during the study. Consider what you would do if you lost all, or a substantial element of, your ONS data due to an unforeseen misfortune - such as a fire or an unrecoverable file or hard disk corruption.

The Guild is well aware of Guild members who have experienced such catastrophic loss of their ONS data that they have lost their lifetime's work and have had to give up on their ONS study. For this reason, the Guild offers assistance to its members in safeguarding their study data.

Safeguarding the data is potentially much easier if the data is held in digitised form on a computer, as it can be easily "backed-up" or copied to other locations. For computer-based data, one-namers should consider:

For paper material, it may be advisable to photocopy (or digitise) all essential paper material from your ONS study. Guild members can take advantage of the excellent rates (you can contact the e-Librarian for details of the costs involved) which the Guild has negotiated for digitising documents.

The Guild also encourages its members to deposit copies of their ONS with appropriate organisations, e.g. the Society of Genealogists, County Record Offices or Local Studies Centres. The reasons for doing this include:

Making the results of your study available to a wider audience
Providing a secure off-site location for your information
Securing your study results should you die

As well as lodging copies of your work with these organisations, you might consider publishing the results of your work as a book, with a potentially much larger audience. This, though, can be a major undertaking, especially as gathering information always seems to be an on-going, never completed job.

As well as safeguarding your one-name study during your lifetime, you may also want to determine what should happen to it after your death. Perhaps the ideal is to be able to pass your study on to another person who is researching the registered name and can continue your work. Whether you have managed to identify such an individual or not, arrangements should be made for the preservation of your ONS after your death. Whatever you decide to do regarding the future of your ONS research, please consider making provision in your will for your executors to pass on your papers. Guild members should consider utilising the Will Codicil drawn up by a Guild member who was a solicitor.