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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

Is your surname here?

    • 2,588 members
    • 2,350 studies
    • 8,286 surnames

Analysis

The most obvious form of analysis is family reconstruction, using vital records, censuses, Wills, tell-tale use of names, naming patterns, spacing of births, etc. to build individual people into families.

You will also be looking for the links and migration between different name variants. From studying the different classes of data, you will analyse which name spellings are genuine variants (names actually used by the individuals) and which are “deviants“, that is, spellings used by others when recording or transcribing the name.

Another important piece of analysis is distribution analysis, and calculating the relative frequency of the name in different places and across time. This may allow you to work out the origin of the name.

Other analytical tasks include:

  • Identifying full names of spouses (i.e. where only the first name is known from a census entry);

  • Finding “missing data” caused by mis-transcription (try all the deviant spellings and more – use wildcards where allowed);

  • Identifying precise locations where, for example, only the Registration District is known from a BMD (Birth / Marriage / Death) index.

For studies primarily in England and Wales, the Guild Marriage Index and the Guild Marriage Challenge can assist in these tasks. It is now known that in the UK BMD indexes the volume and page numbers can assist in locating the precise church in which a marriage took place.

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One-Name Studies

  • One-Name Studies
    • Surnames and variants
    • Registering a one-name study
    • Data collection
    • Analysis
    • Synthesis
    • Publicising your study
    • Responding to enquiries
    • Publication of results
    • Preserving your study
    • Data sources
    • Recording data
    • Storing data
    • Study Associates

Other Guild Websites

You may find our other Guild websites of interest:

  • Members’ Websites Program
  • Surname Cloud
  • Guild Members’ records on FamilySearch
  • Guild Marriage Locator

Contact Us

Email: Guild General Contact
Postal address:
c/o Secretary
Edendale, 113 Stomp Road
Burnham, Berkshire, SL1 7NN, U.K
Call us free on:
UK: 0800 011 2182
US & Canada: 1-800-647-4100
Australia: 1800 305 184

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© 2013–2023 Guild of One-Name Studies CIO. Registered Charity in England and Wales, No. 1197944.