One-name study

Last updated

A one-name study is a project researching a specific surname, as opposed to a particular pedigree (ancestors of one person) or descendancy (descendants of one person or couple). Some people who research a specific surname may restrict their research geographically and chronologically, perhaps to one country and time period, while others may collect all occurrences world-wide for all time. [1]

Contents

A one-name study is not limited to persons who are related biologically. Studies may have a number of family trees which have no link with each other.

Findings from a one-name study are useful to genealogists. Onomasticians, who study the etymology, meaning and geographic origin of names, also draw on the macro perspective provided by a one-name study.

Scope

Many people conducting family history, genealogical or onomastic research may conduct a one-name study of a surname in a given period or locality quite informally.

A full one-name study can be daunting, particularly if the surname is very common. Conversely, a rare surname can be difficult to trace. [2] Since such studies are usually conducted by individuals as a pastime, they are generally feasible only when a surname is not used by more than a couple of thousand contemporary people, so that the total historical data-set is numbered in the low tens of thousands. Where a surname is used by hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, it would be practically impossible to differentiate these persons using national-index data alone.

In some cultures, one-name studies are impossible, since hereditary surnames are not used at all or in the case of names such as Singh may represent religious practice rather than an ancestry. Since a majority of human societies use patronymic surnames, one-name studies generally focus on male succession and ignore family relationships through marriage.

Some researchers are satisfied to collect all information and group it geographically, approximately representing the different family groups. Others attempt to reconstruct lineages.

In most one-name studies, a united lineage will not be discovered, but broad perspectives can be achieved, giving clues to name origins and migrations. Many researchers are motivated to go beyond the one-name-study stage and to compile fully researched, single-family histories of some of the families they discover.

Methods

Accessibility of the data required for a one-name study varies from country to country. Where civil registration indexes are open to public search, they may not be online or gathered in the national capital, but are scattered through the states, as in Australia, or towns, as in France and the United States. In many countries, such as Germany, civil registration and census data are regarded as a state prerogative: vital data are only available to the persons concerned and 19th-century census returns are not available at all.

One-name studies in the United States have become more feasible than they were, thanks to the increased availability of online indexes to 19th-century and early-20th-century censuses.

More limited one-name studies can be conducted using other national indexes including:

One-name studies are generally rounded out with a miscellany of information drawn from national bibliographies, archival catalogues, patent databases, reports of law cases, tax lists, newspaper indexes and web searches. A one-name researcher may also report on the linguistic origins of the surname and its use in place names and corporate names.

UK surnames

Civil registration indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales (for the period from 1837), Scotland (from 1855) and Northern Ireland (from 1865 and Protestant marriages from 1845) are in the public domain, and anyone may apply to see the details of any birth, marriage or death. For the period before civil registration, in principle back to 1538 in England and Wales and 1533 in Scotland, parish registers have recorded birth and/or baptisms, marriages and deaths and/or burials. These are also freely available, although the survival of such registers is less likely as we reach back to the earliest dates of this period.

The civil registration index books for England and Wales were scanned and made available online in 2004 by the subscription web site Findmypast (formerly 1837online) and an index has also been created by volunteers for the free web site FreeBMD. Records for Scotland can be searched at the pay-per-view web site ScotlandsPeople, and this means that a one-name study with a British focus can be conducted from anywhere in the world. Civil registration indexes for Northern Ireland can be viewed at the General Register Office (Northern Ireland) (GRONI) on payment of an entrance fee.

Censuses have taken place in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland since the 1800s. The Irish Census returns for the years 1841 to 1891 are not available having been destroyed. Otherwise information from the 10-yearly censuses from 1841 until 1911 is available and facilitates the linking of surname data into family groups.

Since it is possible to extract a complete data-set of a given surname from these public records, ancestries of most 20th-century persons with a particular surname in England and Wales can be compiled without needing any contact to the persons concerned.

Tools

While most one-name studies are conducted as a pastime, rather than as an economic activity, the sheer volume of information to be organised may require semi-professional data-processing and publishing skills. To avoid retyping large volumes of data by hand, one-name researchers are often skilled at data scraping and automated reformatting. The data must be carefully structured. An accurate copy of the original indexes must be drawn up, and updated when they are amended. Errors and conflicts in the indexes are noted. Links to those tables appear in the roll of individual persons.[ citation needed ]

Many one-name researchers keep data tables in computer spreadsheets because it is possible to see hundreds of items on a single screen and use thinking power to detect patterns. Genealogy software is used by many researchers to collate and define family trees. Others employ relational database software.

Increasingly one-namers are becoming involved in Surname DNA projects, using Y-DNA testing to analyse relationships among different lineages bearing the same surname (or suspected spelling variants). [3]

Motivation and support

One-name researchers often begin a study in the hope that obtaining a massive data set will give them sufficient perspective to break through a barrier in their own family history research. Some are motivated by the belief, only rarely borne out, that kinship can be documented among all persons sharing a surname.[ citation needed ]

The Guild of One-Name Studies was established in the United Kingdom in September 1979, and maintains a register of surnames being researched by members. [4] It is a channel for anyone wishing to contact the person researching a particular registered name. In 2014 the Guild had over 2,000 world-wide members conducting studies of individual surnames and their variants. [5]

Publication

Traditionally, publication of definitive research is undertaken by printing a book or by publishing a one-name periodical.[ citation needed ] Such publications are often sponsored by formally established one-name groups. The UK-based Federation of Family History Societies includes several One-Name Societies, whilst the Guild of One-Name Studies has many members who are associated with such organisations. Advice on setting up a one-name group appears in a short booklet, "One-Name Family History Groups" by Derek Palgrave published by the Halsted Trust in 2008.

Today many studies are presented online, since the data can be continually updated and made available worldwide.[ citation needed ]

A number of Guild of One-Name Studies members have taken advantage of the member benefit called the Members Website Project (MWP) which enables a members to both share and publish their study as a website whilst continuing to work on their study. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genealogy</span> Study of individual descent and bloodline

Genealogy is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. The field of family history is broader than genealogy, and covers not just lineage but also family and community history and biography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Name change</span> Legal act by a person of adopting a different name

Name change is the legal act by a person of adopting a new name different from their current name.

Civil partnership in the United Kingdom is a form of civil union between couples open to both same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. It was introduced via the Civil Partnership Act 2004 by the Labour government. The Act initially permitted only same-sex couples to form civil partnerships, but the law was expanded to include opposite-sex couples in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death certificate</span> Official record of the date, location, and cause of a persons death

A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as entered in an official register of deaths.

Vital statistics is accumulated data gathered on live births, deaths, migration, foetal deaths, marriages and divorces. The most common way of collecting information on these events is through civil registration, an administrative system used by governments to record vital events which occur in their populations. Efforts to improve the quality of vital statistics will therefore be closely related to the development of civil registration systems in countries. Civil registration followed the practice of churches keeping such records since the 19th century.

The Guild of One-Name Studies is a UK-based charitable organisation founded in 1979 for one-name studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Register Office for England and Wales</span> United Kingdom legislation

The General Register Office for England and Wales (GRO) is the section of the United Kingdom HM Passport Office responsible for the civil registration of births, adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in England and Wales and for those same events outside the UK if they involve a UK citizen and qualify to be registered in various miscellaneous registers. With a small number of historic exceptions involving military personnel, it does not deal with records of such events occurring within the land or territorial waters of Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland; those entities' registration systems have always been separate from England and Wales.

A parish register, alternatively known as a parochial register, is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church of an ecclesiastical parish in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms, marriages, and burials are recorded. Along with these events, church goods, the parish's business, and notes on various happenings in the parish may also be recorded. These records exist in England because they were required by law and for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage.

The United Kingdom Census 1901 was the 11th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was done on 31 March 1901 "relating to the persons returned as living at midnight on Sunday, March 31st".

Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different subnational jurisdictions. It can be called a civil registry, civil register, vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, or population registry. The primary purpose of civil registration is to create a legal document that can be used to establish and protect the rights of individuals. A secondary purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Census in the United Kingdom</span> Mass population survey conducted in the United Kingdom

Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941, Ireland in 1921/Northern Ireland in 1931, and Scotland in 2021. In addition to providing detailed information about national demographics, the results of the census play an important part in the calculation of resource allocation to regional and local service providers by the UK government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Register Office</span> Civil registries in Commonwealth-related nations

General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth nations and Ireland. The GRO is the government agency responsible for the recording of vital records such as births, deaths, and marriages, which may also include adoptions, stillbirths, civil unions, etc., and historically, sometimes included records relating to deeds and other property transactions.

A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then appears on a birth certificate, but may change subsequently. Most jurisdictions require the use of a legal name for all legal and administrative purposes, and some jurisdictions permit or require a name change to be recorded at marriage. The legal name may need to be used on various government issued documents. The term is also used when an individual changes their name, typically after reaching a certain legal age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1841 United Kingdom census</span> Census of the population of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom Census of 1841 recorded the occupants of every United Kingdom household on the night of Sunday 6 June 1841. The enactment of the Population Act 1840 meant a new procedure was adopted for taking the 1841 census. It was described as the "first modern census" as it was the first to record information about every member of the household, and administered as a single event, under central control, rather than being devolved to a local level. It formed the model for all subsequent UK censuses, although each went on to refine and expand the questions asked of householders.

Culbert is a personal name that seems to have originated in Europe. The earliest records for this surname are found in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The use of surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England, heritable surnames started to form in the 11th century, and were common in most areas by 1400. The poll tax introduced in England in the 14th century is probably the first time this common usage of surnames was documented.

A government database collects information for various reasons, including climate monitoring, securities law compliance, geological surveys, patent applications and grants, surveillance, national security, border control, law enforcement, public health, voter registration, vehicle registration, social security, and statistics.

Cree is a surname which has several separate origins in England, Scotland and Ireland. It occurs in all those countries today and also in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. It is of Medium Frequency in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Spathaky 1998).

A DNA database or DNA databank is a database of DNA profiles which can be used in the analysis of genetic diseases, genetic fingerprinting for criminology, or genetic genealogy. DNA databases may be public or private, the largest ones being national DNA databases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Registration Act 1939</span> Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom in 1939

The National Registration Act 1939 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. The initial National Registration Bill was introduced to Parliament as an emergency measure at the start of the Second World War.

TheGenealogist is a family history website that provides subscriptions for researchers to help search genealogy records in the United Kingdom. The site is run by Genealogy Supplies (Jersey) Ltd which is part of the S&N Group. Among its accomplishments, the company has completely transcribed the England and Wales censuses from 1841 to 1911 inclusive. The site has been identified as among "the most prominent" subscription-based genealogy websites.

References

  1. ↑ "Guild of One-Name Studies web site". Archived from the original on 2014-02-14. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
  2. ↑ Adler, Harry (2002), Tracking Down Your Ancestors, Oxford: How To Books Ltd., pp. 20–22, ISBN   9781857038286, archived from the original on 2022-05-18, retrieved 2020-12-20
  3. ↑ "DNA project to link people who share the same Staffordshire surname". The Sentinel. Stoke. 13 November 2014. Archived from the original on 28 September 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
  4. ↑ "Guild of One-name Studies: Register". Archived from the original on 17 March 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  5. ↑ "Guild of One-name Studies". Archived from the original on 12 March 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  6. ↑ "The Members' Websites Project (MWP) – Guild of One-Name Studies". one-name.org. Archived from the original on 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.