The Guild did a survey last year to look at membership retention. People who have been with the Guild for a long time tend to stay, though there is inevitably a churn rate through sickness and death. Almost 25% of the members who originally joined in 1979 are still with the Guild today.
One of the problems that the survey highlighted was that members were unaware of all the services we offer, and those who didn't use the many services were the ones most likely to leave. Measures are now in hand to remedy this, but one of the important services that so many members were seemingly unaware of is the facility to archive one-name study material with the Guild. The material has to be available in digital format though exceptions are sometimes made for long-standing members where no other home can be found.
There are some one-name studies that are archived with the Guild. These are known as librarian studies. If you search for one of these surnames in the online register you will get a message to say that the Guild Librarian has some material on the surname. Try searching for the surname Heppenstall as an example. The Librarian studies are also listed on the back page of the current edition of the printed register which is sent out to all members. There only appear to be a couple of hundred Librarian studies and it is a great pity that the work of so many former members has been lost, though I imagine some studies have been deposited at the SOG instead, especially in the yearly years before the digital archiving option became available.
If a surname does not show up as a Librarian study, the Registrar will be able to tell you whether or not a surname has been registered previously and he would also be able to supply the contact details of the previous registrant. You can write to the registrar at: registrar {--at--} one-name.org.
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Please replace {--at--} with @