PARRY One-Name Study Blog: December 2025

It's that time of year again, when many of us look back at what we have achieved over the last twelve months and then forward to all we hope to achieve during the next twelve.

On the Blog
At the beginning of 2025, I reviewed my attempt at the "Guild Blog Challenge 2024" and, from that, made a pact with myself that I would continue to try to write at least one post here each month. I didn't manage to do that every month, missing out on posting in July. However, both June and August (as well as January) contained two posts so, overall, including this one, I will have made fourteen posts.

While that's not 'perfect', it means I have maintained a reasonable level of publication, which I hope to continue into next year. Making a pact with myself, like that, does help to deal with any 'motivation' issues.

Another intention derived from my review of the Guild Challenge was to create a list of "potential blog topics" - I didn't manage to go through all of the past Guild Blog Challenges to collect the topics from those, or to take a look at some of the other series one-namers have created, or followed.¹ However, I did manage to find the themes for several years of Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenges² and created an excel file containing those.

Although I initially started to combine all of the years' topics into one list, to which I intended to add suggestions for ways the topics could be interpreted by a one-namer, I've ended up deciding against that additional process. Amy's intention, as stated in her 2015 post, was that the themes were 'general — one might even say “ambiguous.”' This was quite deliberate, since her aim was "to inspire, rather than dictate."

Given the wide range of One-Name Studies - not just because of the different frequencies of the surnames, and the locations where the surnames predominate, but also in the methods used by individual one-namers - I don't think the extra process is necessary. Bearing in mind that one-namers generally have some advantages over those who are only researching their own ancestry, because:

- a one-name study tends to include a larger number of individuals, than a personal family history,

- and, potentially, those individuals will have a wider variety of backgrounds, and circumstances in their lives - there's more options to choose from to fit particular topics.

- A one-name study also undertakes to develop the research beyond just the individuals, by synthesising the data into conclusions about the surname itself etc, so that produces even more options for interpreting a topic, by writing about methodology, or results, etc.

So I think most one-namers should be able find a way of interpreting the topics to fit their own study, if they want to follow a 'topic based' method for publication. So I have just included links to where I found the lists in the 'Notes & Sources' below.

Rather than writing about particular topics, an alternative approach is to write about whatever research is currently being carried out - when I began my blog, I said it was intended to provide a record of all the ongoing "happenings" in the study, ie "contacts being made, new resources found, links discovered, and general ongoing development, etc."

So, really, as long as I am working on the study, I should have something to write about! (In hindsight, maybe that statement does explain some of the periods without posts! ☺ )

My "fall back" option for a post, which is to take a look at the most recent updates from any (or all!) of whichever genealogical companies I happen to have a subscription to, and comment on entries for my surname (or the lack of such entries.☺) is nicely covered by the inclusion of "new resources found," in the above description of the purpose of the blog.

So subject matter for posts here really shouldn't be an issue!

However, I have identified two particular aspects of blogging that I need to work on, and will possibly be looking for feedback on, over the coming year.

Firstly, dealing with whether I know enough on a topic to write about it. Doubts about this were why my attempts at following the "52 ancestors in 52 weeks" challenge with my own family history failed in both 2018 and 2020. It is so easy to keep on researching, looking for that one more piece of information, one more answer to a question, when one can still identify gaps in one's knowledge, rather than writing up what is already known. I hope that, by reminding myself this is an 'ongoing' study, and that research does not always need to be 'finished' in order to be written up, I will make some progress with this.

The second aspect relates to *how* to write up the research.

When I commented in September that the "Lloyd George Domesday Land Records" had reminded me about the family of PARRYs buried in Potton, and that their story would become the topic for October, I had not anticipated that it would take me until the end of November to 'finish' that post. The problem, apart from the sheer quantity of relevant references, and the time it took to make sense of some of them, was in deciding whether to write a 'family story', or the 'research story', ie a third person account of the family, or an account of my research into them.

Back in April, when writing about the Guild's Conference, I mentioned an emphasis on how 'every story matters', and the fact that "we're not just compiling names and dates etc (a habit it is easy to fall into, with a study of a relatively frequently occurring surname) but actually revealing the humanity of the people we write about, who they were, what they did and, where possible, the why of it, their hopes and their heartbreaks.

So a 'family story' seems to be an ideal worth aiming for.

But I naturally tend towards writing the research story, because it's easier to write about what I have done, and the research I have carried out - and to include all the caveats about each of the records found, something that often seems to get overlooked in family stories. (I often wonder how many 'fictional lives' appear in people's family trees, through inappropriate reconstruction of "facts" from records.)

Another advantage to writing the research story, is that it can be written as the researcher carries out the research, rather than waiting until sufficient records have been traced in order to construct the family story. This saves on time and also the potential hassle of having to re-arrange all the records into the right order for the story. (No prizes for identifying how I know that!)

But the question I kept asking myself, was, "which version would be the more interesting one to read?"

For a while, I considered writing up both versions and asking any readers to comment on which they preferred. In the end, I opted to try to write the family story first, since writing the blog is still a learning process for me and so it seemed important to try something 'different', even if I struggled with it. And now, having taken so long to write the post, I'm not sure I have the stamina to write up a research account (yet alone inflict reading it on anyone else, having seen how long the family story became!)

So the question (as to which version would be more interesting to read) still remains, and this is something I shall continue to consider, and work on, over this coming year.

Finally with regard to the blog, I imagine we all have more ideas about things we ‘could’ do on our studies, than the time that is available to do them. As part of my review of the year, I went through all three of my blogs and noted the items that I’d mentioned as requiring follow up - this ONS blog easily had the most!

I can't promise that the following are all going to become priorities for this coming year, but I am listing them here now, since it will be a measure of 'progress' to see how many of them have been achieved by the end of 2026. (The month in brackets is when I mentioned them during 2025 - not the month I am setting as a goal to do them!):

Individuals or Families
Identifying the Thomas Parrye mentioned in the 1377 poll tax for Birdforth, North Yorkshire (January)
Research into the PARRYs mentioned on the post cards (and add the "Notes & Sources" to that post) (February)
The PARRY family in Walterstone (May)
My 2x great grandfather, Thomas PARRY (May)
The PARRYs from the Golden Vale (June)
Follow up regarding education records, and the Potton PARRYs (June, November)
Durham Home Guard enrolment forms (August)
Thomas PARRY's account book (August)
The PARRYs who served Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I (August)
New Year gifts from PARRYs to Queen Elizabeth I (August)
PARRYs in the Postal Service Appointment Books (September)
Thomas PARRY in the Boer War (September)
PARRYs at the Battle of Trafalgar (October)

Mini Projects
Ireland (September)
Europe (October)
[Noting these has reminded me that I always said PARRYs in Dorset should be researched as a mini project, since many of the early entries relate to just one family.]

Some wider ONS research topics
Why not every "son of Harry" became a "Parry" in Wales (January)
Census figures and distributions (March)
More follow up from Conference topics (e.g. internal migration, slave voyages, US 1950 census, and the issue of "every story matters") (April)
Recheck the "French register of deceased persons since 1970" (August)
Early pedigrees (August)
How to keep track of the numbers of PARRY entries (October)
PARRYs in Doncaster (October. Links to 'internal migration')
Genealogical research Directory (October)

The blog comments relating to several of the above items were linked to my 'currently defunct' website, and so highlight the need to update that and put the information online again.

Changing subject slightly, I was interested to hear Paul Howes mention, at a recent talk to the Yorkshire Regional Meeting of the Guild, that he concentrates on family reconstruction. [I did think he also commented that he leaves others to deal with the 'stories' - but I can't find that reference now, so perhaps I imagined it!☺ ]

There is no right, or wrong, way to carry out a one-name study - although there are some recommendations - many of the methods chosen depend, not only on the individual carrying out the study, but also on the surname being studied, its frequency, as well as its distribution around the world.

But Paul's comment chimed with my current musings about publication on the blog, about organisation, and the tools used for recording the study, as well as the question of how I carry out the research, and what my focus is.

So I have a lot to be working on for the coming year. But I am looking forward to it. Having given up actively volunteering at a local historic house, I should have more time, and a better mindset, to make progress here, with the One-Name Study.

So that's what I am anticipating for 2026!

Happy New Year to All

[Postcard from "Alice" to Mr E T PARRY, of Swansea, sent 30 December 1913]

Notes and Sources

1. Julie Goucher's blog, which includes several examples of blog challenges: https://anglersrest.net/

PARRY One-Name Study Blog

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

A review of this year

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