How I use FamilySearch Source Box for my One-Name Study

I use the Family Search Source Box folders as one tool to organize my one-name-study.

When one does the main bulk of all their online searches and data collecting in the FamilySearch Historical Records Collection, it seems to be a no-brainer to me to utilize the setting in my Family Search account to make it work for my own purposes.

In doing a one-name study, we are not traveling down the lines of a pedigree or filling in a fan chart. Although some one-namers do eventually reconstitute families or even families that connect to their own family, we are collecting for a surname study which requires intense variations of organization.

Last summer, I had many revelations while a student at the Intro to One Name Study course run by Helen Osborne at Pharos Tutors . One of the texts we studied was the Seven Pillars of Wisdom - The Art of One-Name Studies. To quote literally from the manual, it dictates that ‘it is impossible to prescribe the "right" way to carry out a One-Name Study’ so the bottom line was to use, with confidence, what tools that work for you.

Among my tools, for a small one –name study, is the utilization of the Source Box.

First, one needs to have an account at Family Search. Secondly, you go to your profile name and left-click to Source Box. There is a section called MY FOLDERS. It could not be easier. One limitation is that you are only allowed up to 50 folders and there are no sub-folders. As I have a small study that spreads internationally, I decided to label them by localities.

I also created a folder where I save deviant surname variations (no doubt, due to indexers’ transcriptions, where I need to do further research) called Deviants. I have another folder called Family Tree for future attachment to Family Trees when I have identified a family group. Since Family Search Tree added the ADD UNCONNECTED PERSON option, whenever I reconstituted a definite unrelated family in one location with documentations for my one-name study, I add them through this option with sources from my source box.

This is not the only way I save my sources for my one-name study but it just makes sense to use this Source Box approach for organizing my sources right where I basically search for them.

Something new at the Guild of One-Name Studies: FamilySearch Initiative.

      Late last night, I uploaded my small One Name Study up to the Guild of One-Name Studies section of FamilySearch. It was really neat to see this happen as I felt ready to “let go” of my study and share it all. I already have a member website sponsored by the Guild running in the TNG software that publishes the study.

In July, the Guild of One-Name Studies announced another arrangement to help preserve the One Name Studies run by their members so they created the Guild of One-Name Studies Trees category in the GENEALOGIES section of FamilySearch.

Since joining the GOONS1, I have learned so much about research. I loved the courses I took to learn how to do it. I love the quarterly GOONS Journal that comes in the mail. I love how it’s a non-competitive, happy community of researchers who like to share their experiences and techniques with anyone who has the interest.

Coincidentally, the person who helped me upload my gedcom last night to FamilySearch was Marie Byatt2. What is interesting about Marie is that years ago when I was exploring different websites to post some genealogy, I came upon her Pepler One Name Study on Tribal Pages. Now, years later, with Marie's help at the FamilySearch & Guild of One-Name Studies Initiative, I am preserving my own study for the future.



1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_of_One-Name_Studies
2) http://one-name.org/name_profile/pepler/