That’s what I often heard when I gave my new (just married!) surname. I had studied my own family history for a couple of years but this new name raised a new challenge. What about doing a one name family study?
I started with more questions than answers:
- How unusual is it?
- How big a study would that be?
- Where do I start?
- How do I record it?
- Help!!!!!!
One bite at a time
Luckily, help was at hand. I found a Pharos Tutors course run by the Guild of One-Name Studies called Introduction to One Name Studies and I immediately started learning how to eat an elephant.
Firstly how big is the elephant?
My first course taught me how to work out how big a task it was likely to be and gave me some good ideas on where to start. I learnt that my Hunnisett/Honeysett plus umpteen spellings study was deemed to be in the Small size and with quite a defined geographical location in the 19th century censuses. Emminently devourable in small bites!
How to digest your elephant
The Guild of One Name Studies was my next mentor. I joined and read all the material I could find on what recording systems to use, what records to start with and how not to get indigestion by eating too much at a time. Plus reassurance that you could start wherever you wanted and even find others to help.
I looked at recording systems; spreadsheets gave lots of flexibility and the Custodian4 database was used by some members and their user information gave good recommendations about how to structure an identification system for individuals, households and branch lines. So I bought it.
Deep breath. Then I started. In the middle. And worked backwards and forwards.
There was actually a method to this. I thought I could cope with the number of individuals recorded on the UK 1851 census, the first to give birth locations, family relationships and reasonably accurate ages. Then I could match against the 1841 and 1861 censuses, using birth and marriage records to build my family groupings and then branches. The Guild reassured me that I didn’t need to have all the answers so I became brave enough to register a one-name study and offer to answer research questions.
To see my profile page on the Guild’s website, type Hunnisett in the search box at the top of the page
I continued researching going back to the early 1500’s and forward to the 1881 census. But what to do with my multiple spreadsheets, Custodian database and branch family trees on paper (381 years worth), never mind progressing with further censuses and even onto emigrants. The elephant was beginning to get out of hand.
Getting smarter
The Guild then ran a set of webinars which helped me onto the next steps. One of the seminars was about setting up a one-name website of your own. Quite a scary concept!
They encouraged and supported me to set up a one-name website backed by its own database, TNG. The Guild manages the hosting and website upgrades and will take over the management and preserve the data when I no longer can. What a relief!
Here’s the link to my one-name website
It’s a work in progress as I am double checking all the data & sources before inputting it – I’ve learnt a lot since I started it.
But what about the stories I have uncovered?
Deep breath (again) and I set up a blog, where I could tell the tales of the individuals I have uncovered.This last step, only taken in November 2018 has felt like the missing link, where hopefully I bring the Honeysett/Hunnisett people to life.
The current focus is on telling the tales of the family members who died during the Great War. Many of them came from big families and their siblings also served, so I have told their stories too.
Now, how do I get people to read what I have written?
This is what I am trying.
The 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge. GeneaBloggersTribe on Facebook, tweeting the blogs.
This is where I need help, what’s working for you?