Best Websites
These websites offer guidance and first-step facts for anyone researching their family name, says Jonathan Scott
Explore the roots of your family name online
Generally, there are four main categories of surname – they may derive from an occupation, a place, a nickname, or a relationship with a father (such as Johnson, meaning ‘son of John’). Investigating the origins of one’s own surname is often a natural diversion for family historians. For ‘one-namers’, however, the surname takes over, as they study its etymology and history: hoovering up references from entire areas or periods of time; looking for patterns in distribution; tracing movements across borders and boundaries; allying research with DNA studies; and linking up with namesakes from across the globe.
As this month’s expert, Julie Goucher, writes in The Gazette ( thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/ content/101103), many one-name researchers “aspire to identify a single original location of the name”. Although, as she points out, many surnames deriving from an occupation (such as Butcher) or a patronymic surname (such as Robertson) may not have just one origin.
GUILD OF ONE-NAME STUDIES
w one-name.org
The guild’s website has useful public material, alongside resources that are restricted to members. Click ‘Studies > Surname A–Z’ on the site’s menu bar to explore the list of 8,000 surnames that members are currently researching, often leading to external websites from well-established one-name societies and groups working on individual micro- or macro-level projects. The ‘Resources’ section includes two free indexes – Modern Newspapers (1950 to date), and Marriages of the World (up to 80 years ago) – alongside several more if you decide to become a member, plus a detailed guide to how DNA testing can be incorporated into your research. You’ll also find good introductions to launching your own one-name study. Joining the guild costs between £18 and £33 depending on when you sign up and the length of your membership.