Last Saturday, I was in Littleton, near Winchester, attending a seminar organised by the Guild of One-Name Studies (dare I say it - my favourite genealogy organisation!)
The title for the seminar was "Tips and Wrinkles for One-Name Studies," and all of the topics related to aspects of carrying out a study, including two sessions specifically designed for new members, to help them get started.1
As someone who joined the Guild in 2002, one might think such a seminar would hold little appeal for me but, the truth is, I often find these "member led" talks far more interesting, and inspiring, than presentations on general family history topics. They are an opportunity to find out how, and why, other Guild members do what they do, and to pick up new ideas and tips, as well as to enjoy the shared interest in 'one-naming.' (Isn't it wonderful to chat to other people whose eyes don't glaze over the moment we start talking about our hobby!)
Such gatherings can also be an opportunity to find solutions to the challenges many of us experience with our studies.
One of the stages in carrying out a study is to publish the results, making them available for future generations. For many of us, who might never be in a position to write a book, or academic papers, about our surname, a favoured method for publication is a blog. But so many of us (me, included) struggle to maintain a regular blogging habit. A few months ago, I’d even carried out an assessment of the frequency (or otherwise!) of my blog posting, and what it revealed, which I’d intended to use as a ‘re-starting’ post - but never got further than collecting the statistics!
As a result of the comments by members, Melody, who gave a talk about blogs and who has previously organised Guild blogging challenges, has set up a new challenge - a set of topics encouraging us to make one post each month, for the rest of the year (technically starting in August).
The topic for August is “The first person to…. “
Having a suggested topic can be a great help in getting started. On the other hand, sometimes it can become a stumbling block - more on that in a moment.
Having considered, and dismissed, a few other options, I settled on, “The first person to register a Parry One-Name Study with the Guild.” 😀
I’m not going to bore you by actually writing about me, but I found it interesting to look back at my very first blog post, in 2006, and the fact that I’d described the blog as an “experiment.”2
So this is about some of the things I've learnt as a result of the experiment (in no particular order.)
Frequency of posts
Looking back, it seems I started off okay, with 24 posts in each of my first two years. Things then tailed off - 15, 3, 8, 7, 3, followed by only 5 posts in seven years. The initial decline was due to joining a local non-genealogy society, and getting involved with their practical activities. And, by the end of that period, I know I was dealing with an elderly relative who'd had to move into a nursing home seventy miles away from me, and who required regular visits, followed by various related tasks after they passed away. 2020 saw a flurry of 12 posts - all concentrated in the first four months of the year and very much helped by the Guild blog challenge organised by Melody at that time. But I didn't join in the 2021 Blogging Challenge and, apart from two posts in 2023, there's been no other 'action' since, predominantly due to time given over to involvement with a local historic house.
It would be very easy to feel discouraged about these results but, whether it's due to family or health issues, or other activities taking priority, sometimes we just have to accept the fact that the rest of life can get in the way of our studies.
Don't let a long gap prevent you from posting something!
Correspondents
It is fascinating to read how many new contacts I was mentioning in my early posts. One thing I'd always noticed was that, the more active I was on mailing lists, message boards, or the blog etc, the more responses I got - but, consequently, the less time I then had for developing the study in the way I'd planned, because I was often trying to resolve other people's queries instead.
Obviously there is a 'trade-off' here - I'm always glad to receive information about the PARRY surname, I want the research to be of assistance to people, and I would love to build a community of people interested in the surname, and who might also be willing to contribute to developing the study.
But this takes time and sometimes I feel it's easier to just quietly get on with the research, without actually telling anyone about it. 😀
So this is an area which requires careful consideration and, for some of us, perhaps it is necessary to set limits as to how far we are prepared to go, in helping others with their research.
Content and Prompts
Back in 2008 I wrote:
"One of the difficulties with this blog is getting the balance right between meeting the purpose of the blog (which is to keep people informed about what is happening with the study) and making it something that people will actually want to read. I try to log down in Word what I am doing as I do it but, with having a largish study, many tasks take time to complete. This means the blog can turn into a list of half completed activities, forever repeating the same things as ongoing - but the alternative is large gaps between entries, especially when other (non-genealogical) activities also get in the way and delay the finishing of things."3
I think this is always going to be an issue for me.
An alternative to posting about the recent activities of the study would be to follow a topic based system - effectively, what the Guild Blog Challenges, and other systems, such as the "52 ancestors in 52 weeks Challenge", organised by Amy Johnson Crow4, involve.
These can be great for encouraging people to start and maintain blogging.
But, as I mentioned above, prompts can also sometimes become a 'stumbling block', particularly if the set topic doesn't seem to 'fit' any of the information we have. I know there must be many Parrys who were first at something - but I initially struggled to decide what to write about in this post, thinking:
- "first one with the surname?" - too difficult to find with a multiple origin Welsh patronymic,
- "first emigrant/immigrant?" - again, too difficult to identify,
- "first one in my database?" - too long ago to remember,
- "first one in my family line?"- still stuck with the initial Thomas Parry, born about 1788 somewhere outside of Herefordshire, and probably already written about several times as the initial reason behind the study,
- "first Y-DNA tester?" - that one was a possibility but, again, already written about him and still no matching Y-DNA tests, so not a lot 'new' to say (although the frustration of having a Parry who matches on autosomal DNA but never replies to my offers to buy a Y-DNA kit for them is rather frustrating!)
So, prompts can be a great help but, sometimes, one needs to be prepared to 'adjust' them, to suit your own study.
Organisation
This is an issue I found I'd written about on several occasions - generally commenting on the lack of it and the need to be more organised. Most of us in the Guild are aware of the "seven pillars" of a one-name study (data collection, data analysis, synthesis from the collected data, responding to enquiries, publicising the study, publication of the results, and preserving the study).
I seem to have been fairly good at collecting information over the years but often that's as far as the process had got to. That lack of the later stages of analysis and synthesis, in particular, contributes to the failure to post here. So, improved organisation, with a greater focus on distilling the data into something useable, and then posting about it, has to be one of my goals.
Final thoughts - Motivation
My son once told me, "Motivation comes from action, not the other way round."
In that particular case, he was right!
There's no doubt tons of information, and advice, to be found online regarding motivation, and I'm no expert. But, fundamentally, I'm asking myself, "Why am I writing this blog?"
Because the answer to that question will probably determine how well I can keep up with writing posts!
Notes:
- You can see the seminar topics on the Guild page at https://one-name.org/2024_littleton_ons/
- The first post in the PARRY ONS Blog - https://parry-one-name-study.blogspot.com/2006/06/hi.html
- The quoted post - https://parry-one-name-study.blogspot.com/2008/12/one-name-study-blogs.html
- Amy Johnson Crow's "52 ancestors in 52 weeks Challenge" - https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52ancestors52weeks/
