PARRY One-Name Study Blog: The Guild 2026 Conference: ‘Navigating the Future’

I returned home on Monday, after another, very enjoyable, weekend at the annual conference of the Guild of One-Name Studies, this year entitled, “Navigating the Future”. As usual, the combination of quality talks and good company has left me feeling enthusiastic about the PARRY study, and the potential for future progress.

There wasn’t a single talk that didn’t leave me with ‘something’ to think about.

The weekend started well, when I actually managed to set off on time, and it was a good journey to Portsmouth, despite a slight detour, which I assume the sat nav added just to avoid some traffic, since I ended up further down the same road!

I arrived just in time for the first session on Friday afternoon, about the history of Portsmouth. Having recently written about the PARRYs who fought in the Battle of Trafalgar, I’d learnt a bit about the navy, but Brian’s talk covered wider issues, resources, and events I either didn’t know, or had forgotten about, such as the fact that, in 1667, the Dutch fleet had managed to sail all the way to Chatham, where they either burnt, or captured, some English warships,¹ or that there was a “Spanish Armada” in 1779.²

The second session, about some of the “hidden after-effects of the Great War” left me wondering about my mother’s recollections of family “sing-a-alongs”. I gather these had invariable ended with a song involving “more beer”.

It seems slightly ironic that, although this song wasn’t published until 1948, it was based on an old German melody, published in 1898.³ My grandfather and his two brothers all fought in the first World War, and I have since heard, from a second cousin, that at least one of the family had problems with alcohol. Maybe all three did, although, since my grandfather died when I was eight, and we didn’t see them very often, due to our own service life, I have no direct experience of that.

I found the third session, about “envisioning the hidden history of the Portsmouth Suffragist movement”, and how the “Re-presenting the People” project is communicating that history, fascinating. It wasn’t just the research and historical details. (I imagine I wasn’t the only one who had not been aware of the “Pilgrims March” from Portsmouth to London in 1913, that people deliberately hid from the census takers in 1911, as opposed to just spoiling their papers, or who hadn’t appreciated the difference between the Suffragists and the Suffragettes.) But it was also the way in which the story is being communicated, through the recreation of some of the banners, and the use of animation.⁴

I was also reminded that, throughout history, there have been women who used their creative ‘domestic’ skills, such as sewing, in subversive ways!

I decided not to join in with the quiz that followed Friday night’s buffet dinner and, instead, spent a pleasant evening chatting to other Guild members and, hopefully, encouraging at least one of them to take another look at their DNA results.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny – so bright, it was a bit of a shock when I opened the curtains!

I admire those who got up and went for a run, or even just a stroll to obtain a newspaper from the nearby supermarket. Late nights at conference mean I was just glad to be organised enough for the official opening of the Conference, at 9am, by the President of the Guild, Howard Benbrook.

This was followed by Marie Byatt’s talk entitled “Starting a One-name Study Now.” I was looking forward to this – Marie had posted recently, in one of the Guild groups, about collecting information towards a large one-name study, and so I was interested to learn about her methods. The talk did not disappoint and, as a result, later in the day, I went to a demonstration of some of the Excel tools that had been designed to help her.

Marie’s talk was followed, very appropriately, by Paul Carter’s on “Making your Research Manageable: practical ways to structure a One-name Study” – an essential topic, but particularly for those dealing with larger studies. Although Paul is the creator of the Name & Place software,⁵ that wasn’t the focus of his presentation, which dealt more with the structure and principles underlying how we deal with records.

Paul emphasised the difference between the data we collect, and the interpretations we derive from it. I particularly liked his cautions regarding entering information into family trees, and the point that, although a gedcom file has structure, it is “structured around conclusions.” As I have said previously, if you’re not careful, an entirely false ‘life story’ can be created through incorrectly linking records and, once the information appears in a pedigree, people rarely consider the reliability of the connections that have been made between the facts, in order to construct that tree.

I also liked Paul’s comment about Artificial Intelligence (AI) – that it is “useful as a clerk, but dangerous as a judge.” It is our job to make the interpretative decisions; we shouldn’t expect AI to do that.

As someone who has not yet tried many of the AI tools, these are the type of ‘snippets’ I am collecting, to bear in mind once I do start. The six steps in Paul’s “structured data workflow” were also helpful, in that they reminded me about slowing down and really looking at a document, before drawing any conclusions from it, and about considering not just everything that is recorded on the document, but also what is missing. Another comment of his, that every record contains five things – people, places, events, facts, and sources – will be useful in this regard, as will his downloads about structuring data.

The final talk of the morning was a demonstration of using AI for genealogical research, but this was the session I missed, since it coincided with the demonstration of the macros written to help Marie with her research. I opted to attend that instead of the main talk, since the main talks were being recorded and I’d be able to catch up later with any I missed. (As usual, thanks to Bob Cumberbatch, who dealt with the audio-visual equipment and the recordings, which are already available to Guild members on the website.)

The afternoon sessions began with a parade of vintage Guild bags, of which I have a few:

This was followed by a talk by Dr Nick Barratt about sources for research into the medieval and early modern periods. Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering that I have spent much of the last eight years researching certain aspects of the Coventry Charterhouse, particularly through the 1500s, there wasn’t much in this that was ‘new’ to me – which was reassuring.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time afterwards, during the questions, for me to warn people about my experience of trying to purchase a second-hand copy of one of Dr Barratt’s recommended books, Eileen Gooder’s “Latin for Local History”.

My first two attempts to purchase this through eBay resulted in me being sent the wrong book (“A Lincolnshire Village. The parish of Corby Glen in its historical context.”) This was probably due to that book having an advert for Gooder’s work on the back, and the wrong ISBN being picked up by the automated catalogue creation used by larger resellers. I eventually obtained a copy of the right book through an independent bookseller, but I also contacted them first, to check it was going to be the correct one.

“Who was Ann Elizabeth Epitaux?”, a talk about how a Victorian sampler inspired the Woking Area u3a group to research the life story of the girl who embroidered it, came next. The research resulted in an interesting story, showing the contrasting lives of members of the family.

The final session of the day was a panel discussion, with three of the weekend’s speakers, Janet Few, Darris Williams, and Paul Carter, responding to questions put by members. AI obviously featured highly, and again, it was reassuring to find I’m not ‘adrift’ in my own thinking – in fact, a couple of times, I wrote an “added thought” down, only to have the same thing promptly said by one of the panel!

It was a good discussion, with some very notable points, a key one for me being my personal responsibility with regard to the issues raised, such as having an AI policy, and the need to educate others regarding ‘proper’ research.

I also noted a comment by Janet regarding potential risks with using the “Know Your Customer” facial recognition verification, which is now being rolled out by many financial organisations, especially for those people who feature in numerous video presentations that are easily available online.

Saturday evening’s banquet was followed by an interesting talk about the Mary Rose and, of course, more opportunity to catch up with other Guild members (and another late night, although not as late for me as for some!)

Sunday’s sessions kicked off with Janet Few’s talk about “Preserving the Past for the Future.” Anyone who has read a particular post on one of my other blogs will already know that Janet is someone who inspires me⁶, and this talk was no different – I wrote in my notes, “Brilliant talk, so many ‘reminders’ of things that can be included when we write the stories of our ancestors.” Janet included a reminder to think about what is missing from the family archive, as well. I also noted my gratitude to my mother, when Janet was talking about timelines – thanks to my mother’s habit of writing addresses, and exact dates, in her WRAF bible, we are one service family who knows exactly when we moved where!

Next came a talk by Darris Williams, about AI – for me, very timely, and with a balance between the problems and the possibilities. I’ve highlighted several points in my notes, either to act on in the coming months, or to remember, once I start specifically trying to use any of the AI tools.

Another ‘story’, rather than ‘techniques’, talk next, with Howard Benbrook presenting research about the Hampshire Swing Riots. I was interested to hear of the parallels between these and other periods of discontent, and unrest, in the years following wars, or the development of new technology. There was clearly a lot going on during the 1830s, and it is recent enough that most of us will probably have been able to trace ancestors who were living at the time, and who may have been affected in some way.

So that’s something to bear in mind, when researching and writing their stories.

The final two talks both concerned DNA, with Donna Rutherford presenting on “Future Proofing Your DNA Research” and Dr Sophia Kay, on “Analysing Genetic Networks with Gephi.” Having taken an active interest in DNA since about 2007, as well as having attended Donna’s talks at the Guild seminar last October, not a lot of Donna's talk was new to me, although there were a couple of apps mentioned that I still need to check out.

But it was the last talk that really made my day – I have written elsewhere about my initial forays into using networks to explore my DNA matches.⁷ But progress had ground to a halt, partly because the number of matches increased too much for me to deal with, given my limited understanding of the program I’d started with, but also, when I tried an alternative, that only seemed to work the first time I used it and I never found time to work out what had gone wrong.

So, although I have wanted to do more with networking programs, they’ve always seemed a bit too complicated for me to even make a start.

However, Dr Kay’s introduction to Gephi, and her practical demonstration, have made me think it will be worth trying again.

Following this final talk, the Conference was closed by Howard and, after a cup of tea (and a few more snacks), we all made our various ways home.

Or, in my case, a short distance to visit a relative in nearby Southampton, where I enjoyed an evening walk.

So, to sum up “my” conference with a few highlights: I was reminded several times of how the Guild’s greatest resource really is the other members - there is such a variety of talents, and a willingness to share their skills and knowledge, that we all then benefit from them. I found many of the talks were “just what I need”, at this moment. In addition, on one occasion, I found myself sitting at the same table as the member who conducts the one-name study into another of my surnames - and I also met one of my DNA matches, who is now a Guild member!

We had corresponded about six years ago, when they first appeared on my match list. So it was a lovely surprise to suddenly spot their name on a badge at the Conference. We will, no doubt, be sharing further information now, since I imagine we have both discovered more about our shared ancestors.

That is worth some celebratory fireworks!