TL:DR Do your study the way that makes you happy. Learn from others, pick and choose the methods that suit you. Don’t be afraid to do things differently.
A recent post on Facebook prompted me to write a little about how I work on my Southgate One-Name Study, in the hope that something I say might help other new members, or those considering whether or not to enter the wonderful world of surname research.
I am relatively new to this corner of genealogy. I joined the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2020 and registered my study at the same time.
However, I knew as soon as I heard about one-name studies that this was a research project that was right up my street, and the fact that there is no official “right way” to do a study was a big attraction for someone who has, well, shall we say, a certain amount of difficulty conforming!
I have always loved researching my own way, figuring things out myself, rather than being told what to do. Perhaps my methodology won’t work for everyone, but if my story inspires anyone to investigate one-name studies then I’ll be happy.
How it started
I tell this story a lot, so many of you probably already know my tale of daughterly devotion gone wrong, but here goes: A few years ago I was “helping” my dad with fact-checking the family tree he created in the 1970s.
(I may have inadvertently broke the tree)
Realising that a) my dad was probably tearing his hair out about my “help”, and b) that I really loved this whole genealogy thing, I decided to look elsewhere for a project to keep me busy.
In stepped the Guild of One-Name Studies, who said that I could justify researching all those interesting yet unrelated Southgates under the auspices of an official one-name study. Yay!
So, how to begin?
I could have gone down the route of spending time researching whether a one-name study was for me on the Guild’s website, or taking the fabulous Introduction to One-Name Studies Pharos course, or making lots of plans.
Many ONS researchers and Guild members do just that – it can be a great way to start
But I’m afraid that’s not my style
I dived straight in and started collecting and organising Southgates, developing my own methods for doing so on the fly.
It didn’t even really occur to me to join the Guild and then begin a study later – for me, the study was the thing, and the Guild was the support (it is great support by the way).
Why did I leap before looking?
Because it is what pleases me. I am not a natural planner. Waiting to begin until I understand something completely – out of my comfort zone. Focusing on one topic for a long period is not my forte, I get bored!
I started this study for my own pleasure, and eventually I hope it will be of use to others. But I knew that if I imposed unsuitable methods on myself, or tried to do my study how others do theirs I would quickly give up.
Instead, I threw myself at my work, discovered problems, and then solved them by borrowing ideas and methods from other Guild members, researchers, and the wider genealogy community.
Thank you to everyone who has unknowingly contributed to the workings of the Southgate One-Name Study so far!
And I was off …!
I started with the 1851 census. Why? Because I like it the best. In my opinion it is the first “proper” England and Wales census, with enough detail for familial reconstruction, and it is easily accessible.
I downloaded all the 1851 Southgates (2000+) from the FamilySearch website and put them in a spreadsheet. For much of last year’s lockdowns I spent time going through the census entries (free home access to Ancestry Library Edition!), filling in detail and making sure I had sorted out family groups.
I added the basic details of all these people to a RootsMagic database and used the record numbers it generated to link my spreadsheet and database together.
Rootsmagic – full of Southgates 
1851 Census spreadsheet
Once I was happy that I had all the obvious 1851 Southgates added (there are some strays here and there, elusive travelling servants and lonesome widows), I split my work into two research avenues that I still follow.
My recipes for a happy study
Familial Reconstruction
- Take a family
- Research it vigorously
- Expand forward, back and sideways as far as possible
- Season with unusual record sets to taste
- Add a narrative to my website and a GEDCOM to my TNG site
- Repeat
Focus on Record Sets
- Take a record set
- Extract data (use lots of copy and paste)
- Put it in a spreadsheet and leave to stew
- When done, identify the Southgates
- Add new Southgates to my database and the record set to my website
- Repeat
Aside: How do I choose the next family or record set?
Whatever piques my interest – an unusual place, an odd middle name, a strange occupation, a newspaper article (Scandal! Murder!), or by finding lonely Southgates in my database and attempting to reunite them with their families.
For record sets, I might come across an interesting one while researching a family, or someone on Twitter might post something intriguing. I keep a list of these for later, as I do try to restrict the number of things I am working on at one time (hah!)
Why do I choose like this?
Well, I figure there’s no point going alphabetically if the next family is going to be a chore or a bore to investigate (if I am “ag lab”d out for the moment, for example), or geographically if the records are not easily accessible (I’m looking at you, Suffolk!), or temporally if you are not very experienced in 17th century palaeography (yet). So choosing by excitement level suits me very well indeed.
Once I chose someone who was born on that day a couple of hundred years ago. Whatever works for you!
How it’s going
I work on both of those research avenues fairly equally. It is a slow and deliberate process, so there is not much on my website so far, but I have lots in progress.
Of course, part of the reason why it is a slow process is that I end up falling down the inevitable genealogical rabbit holes and pursuing projects on the side, for example:
I love transcribing wills, so am working through the many Southgate wills I have downloaded
I know I need to get better at “synthesis” – making sense of, and explaining my results, so I am working on my writing skills
(this blog!)
(and then there is the Marine Lives transcription project I found myself working on, and a mini project profiling silk weavers in Wilmslow, prompted by a comment on Twitter about how we could incorporate more crafts into genealogy, and my own family tree, and the “volunteering for the Guild” thing I fell into this year …)
Most importantly, I am enjoying my work
I don’t feel bogged down by process, or under any obligation to complete a piece of research quickly. I can pick up or drop different aspects of the study as I please, returning as they pop up in my wider learning.
It can sometimes be easy to feel disheartened
- I have 4000+ people in my database so far, and only three “finished” trees up on the TNG section of my website
- I have strays from 1851 that I cannot link to a family
- I keep hitting brickwalls at the top of my trees and rarely definitely get back beyond 1700
- I am always discovering more record sets and more instances of my surname that I “need” to store and record and link together … sometimes it seems like the task is immense and unachievable …
But I do know that a one-name study is a marathon, not a sprint
So I will keep working on my research, bit by bit. My one-name study will grow with me as I grow as a genealogist, and eventually, hopefully, will satisfy my own perfectionism.
Of course, then I’ll need to choose a new name to study …!
What I wish I had known when I started my study
Do make it fun, make it yours
Find out how other people do their studies, then borrow all the bits that look like fun or might be useful and incorporate them into your own study.
Or be a nonconformist. Invent your own way of working.
My methods, as a librarian and home educator and flighty genealogist, work for me, but probably look very different to your own ideal. Find what works, and then share it!
Don’t be afraid of the rabbit holes
When I find something I don’t understand in a record, it leads me to topics that I didn’t think I needed to know about (vulcanising rubber, Dover Packet boats, calendering fabrics …)
These research tangents can enliven your study and make it unique.
Do keep a research log
As I said, I am not a good planner, but “reverse planning”, where you write down what you have done, is something I should have started doing right at the beginning of my study.
I now keep a record in Evernote whenever I work on something Southgate related, so I can easily check if I am duplicating earlier work (I forget…)
Don’t worry about changing your mind
I am currently changing the format of all the place names in my database, as I decided that I didn’t like the automatic standardisation of places that RM did. It’s a pain, but worth the effort.
You don’t need to stick with your plans if you develop new ideas or learn new things.
Do expand your horizons
Many of my brickwalls have been broken down since I became brave enough to spread my net wider, using information from record sets beyond BMD (wills, land tax, newspapers, court records, lists of blacksmiths …)
These are also really cool record sets in their own right.[1] https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ [2]https://blacksmiths.mygenwebs.com/ [3]http://marinelives.org/wiki/MarineLives [4]https://www.londonroll.org/search [5]https://www.intoxicantsproject.org/publications/database/ [6]https://maps.nls.uk/ [7]https://wills.canterbury-cathedral.org/ [8]https://www.canadiana.ca/ [9]https://www.thegazette.co.uk/ [10]https://cdnc.ucr.edu/
So, that is how I work (for now). Its not wildly exciting or innovative, but it suits me. As my study develops I expect my methods will change. For me, the idea of starting out with a firm and inflexible plan for a project as massive and open-ended as a one-name study was never going to work, so fluidity is just fine.
I really am learning as I research, which is why I haven’t talked about technical things like citations or software – there are so many resources out there by experts who can help if you want guidance on such things.
Hopefully this post has given you some ideas about one way a one-name study can work.
A final note – the best thing I have done since starting my study has been to find and talk to other genealogists.
Communicating with other researchers
Collaborating and learning together
Celebrating your successes
(as well as commiserating over the less than fruitful moments)
is, in my view, the best way to become a better genealogist.
Now – go and find other study registrants to borrow their ideas too!
References
Great post – I agree that you have to keep your ONS interesting and don’t make your study a chore. You have some terrific ways of doing just that!
Thanks Tessa!
This is brilliant – I love it! I have been doing a ONS on WikiTree for Turvey for a while now. My approach us very similar – agree with the 1851 census for exactly the reason you say. Have also recently been working through those who died in WW1 – an interesting record set which links well to the census records.
Wikitree is an ideal site to host my research as it gives an opportunity to link into others who are researching the same name.
I love wikitree! I am trying not to spread myself too thinly, but I have recently started working on there to learn the site.
Interesting, not a bit like I do things, but rabbit holes can be interesting and like most others and like Alice I am easily led. I try to stick to one set of records if I can link them to families so much the better but no spreadsheets to look at unless I am trying to transfer large data sets into my family history program. I am never happier working through a set of records and adding them to my database they will link together one day hopefully. I came across a burial of a 14-month-old girl today, all I had was her birth registration and had found her parents, so that was a bonus since I can add no more to her records. Unless there is a newspaper report which I may or may not come across as I weave through my study with two of us working at it we have a combined total of 100.000 records. My two names link together in one database, I spent my early years just adding BMD registrations and stopped when I thought I had gone far enough to be able to piece families together, I am now 50 years behind in recording them in bulk, is it time to move closer to the present time, one day I will try if I live that long.!!
Variety is the spice of life they say! It’s great to hear how someone with such a large and established study works – perhaps you could write a post to share too Paul?
This is so inspiring – thank you! Like you, I can be a bit of a ‘random’ researcher; I want to be free to burrow down rabbit holes that interest me and have certainly done so with some of my tree, much to the despair of my cousin. I mean how can you resist in-depth research on a man who took out a patent on a boiler for glasshouses for hot-house flowers, especially when said boiler was used in a chapel and killed several people, whilst another caused an explosion on a boat!? Unfortunately not from the name I intend to register, spurred on by your excellent blog.
Watch this space …
Oh my word that is such an exciting story! I look forward to hearing more! Those stories (and patents in particular – how cool are those documents?!) are what made me start up this blog – I wanted a place to write about all the awesome and random things that I discovered, and if I can enthuse one other genealogist about anything then that makes me very happy indeed.
You’ve given some wonderful insight Charlie. I wish there had been something like this available when I started my ONS because I felt so completely at sea I gave up for a few years.
Question for you – you mention strays. How do you handle those when you find them in a record (census for example). Do you upload to your database anyway or wait until you have found another individual or family to which you can connect them?
Thank you Karen. I currently keep my strays in a spreadsheet with the rest of my 1851 entries (though a different sheet so they don’t fight 😉 ). I return to them often to see if I can add more information, or, as is often the case, to discover that I have already added them to my database via another route (family reconstruction etc.). If I can find sensible BMD records, then I add them to my database. I have quite a lot of “trees” with only a couple of people in them in my database – looking just now, 25 singleton trees and similar numbers of two or three member trees, and I go through those occasionally to try to join them together.
Thanks Charlie for that insight. I add people to the database only if I can find at least one other person with whom to connect them, otherwise like yours they stay in the original spreadsheet