General Chat

Has anyone found a one name study for their surnames, did you make contact and was it helpful?

In the early days I found my maiden name on the list. As I was stuck I made contact, only to find it wasn’t really a study and the ‘owner’ had no interest in it.

I have been thinking about doing one but I have not got around to it yet :-)

A friend of mine used to run a one name study.
To belong to the Guild of One Name Studies (G.O.O.N.S ) you had to meet certain criteria regarding what records you had and had to agree to share information if people made contact.

Over the years, my friend bought literally hundreds of b, m and d certificates and willingly helped anyone who made contact with any enquiries.

I have personally contacted 2 one name study groups.
One was really helpful, but we didn't solve the puzzle., The other person for a different name said they didn't have records for the area of the country, which I was interested in.

The last one is not really a one name study then, surely.

That's what I thought names.

The surname was centred on 2 distinct areas back in 1800s.
I was asking about those in Hampshire and Isle of Wight, but the researcher only had information about those in the Birmingham area :-S :-S

I did.

I found my maiden surname on there back around 2005 or so

I've told the story many times, so I won't go into detail except to say that I tried to contact the contact through ONS about 3 times over a period of about 3 years, no reply. I contacted the registrar who told me to try 1 more time and wait 6 weeks, as that was the outer time limit that the owner had for responding to any query.

No response, so the Registrar contacted the owner.

Result ............ tree removed.

I found out that it had been posted by one of my second cousins A who had actually "removed" most of the information from his brother B, who had done all the work. I had provided information in at least one of my emails that showed that I knew that B was the real researcher.

Before being caught out,, A had held a large-ish meeting of people (ca 100) with the surname and had handed out a CD with the full table on it.

That is the CD that I was later given a copy, to discover that he had "lost" my father, replaced him with my brother, and thus made my brother my father. :-S :-D

I remember.

And I am sure you were told it was fully researched and absolutley correct. :-D

I never heard any more from that cousin, but am in regular contact with the one who had done the work, and a lot of it was done with my brother in the 1980s, so cousin B has everything correct!!

The problem was that their father moved to Lincolnshire when he married, and therefore none of the kids had any contact with the rellies in Lancashire. So the ONS one had just tried what he thought he'd been told of the "modern: generation.

But cousin B had met my brother, and they corresponded regularly.

I wish I could know what the ONS people thought about it all :-D

Many years back I made contact with the Riggs one name study. There was quite a bit of confusion around my Great Grandfather, I had lots of proof around the information on my tree but the ONS was slightly 'out' I can't remember now, going back about 20 years but I am not sure it was ever sorted. And the person running it was not able to be contacted. Of course technology has moved on so maybe it is ok now. I actually have not checked.

When I started researching, many years ago, there was a Yahoo group for the name Podger which I joined. A guy in Canada was trying to link all people with that name and see if he could trace them back to a common ancestor. I spent hours in Bromley researching for him. Sadly he died some years ago and I don't know what happened to the group

Isn't there a problem with one-name studies, in that, on the whole, the female is negated?

Or, you could trace a name back generations, like, for example, my Suffolk Baggotts, trace them all the way back to the 17th century, to find Anne Baggott gave birth to Richard Baggott - who these hundreds of 'Baggots' are descended from - only for the Bastardy Bond to declare that Richards father was one James Reid!! :-D

I suppose some people start with good intentions without realising how big an effort it will be.

I was surprised that the one I contacted had no interest into how my family fitted in. Although I do have to admit that it is a fairly common name, which I now know not to be the orignal surname..

Yes, that's the other problem!

I have Rosecrowe, or is that Roscrowe, Roscrow, or even Roskow!
All names used for the same family in the same area, in less than 50 years.

I notice the Guild have none of the above, but do have Rosco, Roscoe and Rosecow.
Do they deny these names may be the same family, and just bunch any Rosco they find as the same family, or do they acknowledge the spelling depended on the vicar, or local spelling, which changes from area to area?

They'd have fun with my Hornicote's/Hornycote's/Hornicot's.
The men of the family changed their name to Tintagel/Tyntagel for a couple of generations, when they ended up owning the place. :-D :-D