Single name studies - obselete?

[bugbear]

I am under the impression that single name studies originated in the era of paging through documents, either originals or on fiche, and the patient use of the mk1 human eyeball.

When doing this, it is relatively easy to extract/transcribe every record that matches "the name".

This dataset would also (probably) allow you establish a patrilineal line of descent.

In the modern era of indexed and searchable data it is much more feasible than it used to be to form a full tree, tracing both parents at every level.

So - are single name studies obselete now, or do they have a merit or benefit that I haven't appreciated?

 BugBear

[jc26red]

I feel they still have a place.

For me, it’s about trying to find where abouts in England my Creed line originally came from before arriving in Ireland in the early 1600’s.
Ok, it’s a reasonably “small” name to research, but there were pockets of them in various parts of the country. By collecting as much info as I can, I have been able to narrow my search down. It’s a bit systematic but it’s working, slowly.
Collecting the info means I don’t have to keep referring back to the subscription sites.

The only problem I am having now, is the speed in which new databases are becoming available, it is hard to keep up!

[bugbear]

I feel they still have a place.

For me, it’s about trying to find where abouts in England my Creed line originally came from before arriving in Ireland in the early 1600’s.
Ok, it’s a reasonably “small” name to research, but there were pockets of them in various parts of the country. By collecting as much info as I can, I have been able to narrow my search down. It’s a bit systematic but it’s working, slowly.
Collecting the info means I don’t have to keep referring back to the subscription sites.

The only problem I am having now, is the speed in which new databases are becoming available, it is hard to keep up!

OK, so you are indeed researching a "line"; do I also take it that your working assumption is that if you get ALL the records for the name, your line MUST be in the data somewhere, and the remaining task is to pick it out"?

If I'm right, the single name record gathering is stage 1 of a 2 stage process.

1) Gather all the records for the name
2) Find the relevant records for the line, which are assumed to be a subset of (1)

 BugBear

[clayton bradley]

I did a small one name study for a specific area in order to prove which was my Ann Smith born 1800 in Clayton le Moors, Lancashire. All my trees are on Ancestry so all the Smiths I am not related to might be useful to someone else, cb

[bugbear]

I did a small one name study for a specific area in order to prove which was my Ann Smith born 1800 in Clayton le Moors, Lancashire. All my trees are on Ancestry so all the Smiths I am not related to might be useful to someone else, cb

I did something similar - I tried (and failed) to find a "Joseph Hagger" in my tree. I researched quite extensive fully cited trees for no less than 5 Joseph Haggers with "close" dates and places of birth.

None of them were mine!

 BugBear

[brigidmac]

I think i.m going to discover that my particular branch of Macdermid from Cambuslang in  1900 s will disappear with the next generation

Although my g grandfather  had 6 sons only 2 had sons
My father only had daughters   ( we've kept our maiden names )

 I've traced the  cousins lines   in new Zealand Australia & America it looks like if there were any male 2nd cousins they either died childless or  had girls


 haven't found any evidence of children for the eldest cousin in cumbuslang either


on the other hand I'm a big fan of giving importance to the female line too and looking at places of origins for couples .

The fact that people have done 1 name studies does help a lot

[coombs]

Depends on the commonness of the name, unless it is a ONS for a few villages or a town, or neighbourhood of a city. Ie all Smith's in Shoreditch 1800-1850.

If it is a rare name then ONS studies are worth their weight in gold.

[bugbear]

If it is a rare name then ONS studies are worth their weight in gold.

Could you expand on why, please?

Clearly any-and-all careful research, transforming raw records into checked and transcribed relationships have value; what's the particular merit of a ONS as opposed to a small tree?

  BugBear

[BumbleB]

I, too, have conducted my own ONS for the surname of Archbell within England.  It has been a fascinating exercise, if only to allocate children to the various Thomas/Mary combinations.  It also helped to sort out two marriages for Hannah Archbell, when I only had one baptism!!

I have yet to establish any connection between the seafaring Archbell families of Scarborough/Wapping 1700's to the farming Archbell families of Healaugh/Tadcaster 1700's.  And I can extend to South Africa, Canada and Australia BUT I haven't so far found any connections with USA.

Each to their own - whatever floats your boat