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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

Is your surname here?

    • 2,233 members
    • 2,140 studies
    • 7,592 surnames

Publicising your study

The one-namer will wish to publicise his or her one-name study in as many places as possible, to maximise the number of contacts and hence the amount of additional information that such contacts can contribute. Naturally, for Guild-registered studies, a major route to publicity will be through inclusion in the Guild Register, which is not only available online through this website, but also is accessible in printed form through many libraries, record offices, and family history societies.

In addition the one-namer will seek alternative publicity routes. Nowadays, a one-name website is likely to be the most effective way to promulgate your study. The Members’ Websites Program is designed to provide a safe haven for members’ one-name study websites. Members can upload to the Program’s webserver a one-name study website concerned with any surname which they have registered with the Guild.

Guild members who are not confident in their ability to create a website may acquire a web presence for their one-name study through the Guild’s profile-page facility, without needing to know anything about the technicalities of building web pages.

Other places to consider include:

  • Family History magazines; for example, Family Tree Magazine (which has an online register of family tree interests) www.family-tree.co.uk

  • Cyndi’s List – www.cyndislist.com

  • Rootsweb – www.rootsweb.com

  • Genuki – www.genuki.org.uk

  • GenesReunited – www.genesreunited.com

  • LostCousins – www.lostcousins.com

  • British-Genealogy.com (and overseas equivalents) – www.british-genealogy.com

  • Relevant county surname lists – www.genuki.org.uk/indexes/SurnamesLists.html

  • Family History Societies’ Members’ Interests lists

  • The Society of Genealogists – www.sog.org.uk

You might also consider setting up a one-name mailing list via Rootsweb or British Genealogy.

The more you publicise your study, the more responses and enquiries you are likely to get – although a really unusual name is never likely to receive many contacts. Guild members have committed to respond to all reply-paid letters and emails. However, you should consider how much information you should give to enquirers, and how you persuade them to let you have their data. We would recommend that, in providing information to others, you consider the need to respect the privacy of living people.

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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
    • Roles for One-Name Studies

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 Treasurer,
3 Windsor Gardens,
Herne Bay,
Kent, CT6 8FE. UK.
Call us free on:
UK: 0800 011 2182
US & Canada: 1-800-647-4100
Australia: 1800 305 184

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© 2013–2025 Guild of One-Name Studies CIO. Registered Charity in England and Wales, No. 1197944.