The GOONS at Hawkesbury

Karen Rogers

Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine were nowhere in sight when the GOONS came to The Hawkesbury Family History Group today.

 Karen Rogers, the NSW/ACT regional representative for the GOONS (The Guild of One-Name Studies) in Australia talked about surnames, their history and distribution and one-name studies at the meeting this morning.

After hearing Karen explain that a one-name study is a project researching one surname and all the people who have held it in the world I realised that my idea for researching the Curry surname in Australia did not fit the criteria for a study as a member of  "The Guild of One-Name Studies". I'll put my excel spreadsheets in mothballs and if I ever get around to doing the Currys I will go it alone.

We learnt that here are over 2,000 members studying around 7,850 surnames worldwide. One can check online to see if there is a study underway for one's family names. Karen explained the requirements  for those conducting studies; a great deal of research and preparation is needed before a study is accepted and then a considerable amount of work is required of  a study coordinator who has certain responsibilities such as becoming the world expert on a surname, ongoing research and answering queries within three weeks.

The seven aspects of a study are:

• Data collection
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Publicising the study
• Responding to enquiries
• Publication of results
• Preserving the study

Karen suggested that one needed to be a bit obsessive to conduct a study but that medium size studies are a lot of fun. She said that "after a while people in your study become your family".

Karen also explained that one does not have to conduct a study to join The Guild of One-Name Studies. One can join as an ordinary member and reap the benefits that membership of the society brings.

It's taken me a while to get around to attending a meeting at this society, I was pleased that I chose today to visit. I found Karen's talk fascinating and wished that she would have had more time to further explore the information on her slides.