A Novel Way To Research Your Family History: The Surname Study



Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011

by Kerry Hook

When a beginner genealogist starts out to research their family history, they take the usual route that most people are familiar with.  Typically, that involves starting with yourself – recording all the pertinent facts and then moving on to all your relatives.  Once that is complete, there is a whole host of Internet possibilities awaiting you if you pursue your family tree from the usual, standard approach.

But, there is another way to research your family history that you may not have thought about.  This method researches all occurrences of a single surname, rather than just your ancestors.  This means that during your search you will find many people that are not actually related to you, but every so often you will find a branch that had been lost to your family tree.  Genealogists who research just one name are sometimes called “one-namers”.  They may collect names from a particular geographic region to help limit their information overload, or if they are really ambitious, they may collect names from all over the world.

Single name research involves all of the same skills that a regular genealogist uses.  You’ll need to pay careful attention to detail, verify all records, and keep your growing database of information well organized.

It can take a great deal of time, effort and resources to pursue a single name study, but it is especially interesting you suspect that several groups of family may be related, but you just haven’t found the linkage yet.  Genealogy has gone high tech with the advent of DNA research.  Now you can use DNA to determine if what appears to be different family groups really are different, or if they are related in some way that the records have not shown.

Another fun thing about single surname research is that you will meet new people.  I’ve always found this to be one of the great benefits to being a genealogist.

If you decide to do a single name research project be sure to include all variants of spelling for your surname.  Take some time and learn what these variant spellings are so that you include all of them.

If you decide to pursue a one name study, check out the Guild of One Name Studies.  This organization can help you learn about possible sources for your research.  You can also share your research with others thru the Guild.  Even if you do not end up doing a one name study, you should check your surname at the Guild.  It may be that someone else has already done the research on your surname, so it is a great research for genealogists.

Another good site to visit for single surname research is The Single Surname Resource Center.  They have a collection of good links that will keep you busy for a long time and really move you along in your single name research study.

Head on over to the Genealogy Blog Finder and look for your surname.  If you can’t find it, you may want to consider doing your own blog about your surname research.  This makes it easy for long lost relatives to find you.  It’s always mutually beneficial to share information with fellow genealogists researching the same surname.  You just never know who you will meet or what new information they will have which is why genealogy is such an exciting hobby.

 
Kerry Hook has been writing for many years and is an avid fan of Keurig coffeemakers.

She shares coffemaker maintenance tips at: Keurig Descaling Find more on the commercial version of this coffeemaker here:

Keurig b3000SE

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Jennifer Stewart
 1 year 119 days ago.
153 fans.
I'm enjoying your articles on this subject; I'm amazed that there are so many available resources.
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