A one-name study researches every occurrence of a surname, worldwide, rather than one family's ancestry. Thousands of studies are registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies, and a website is how most of them share their findings, attract contributors and connect people who share the name.
This guide covers what a good one-name study website contains, the decisions to make before you build it, and how to build one on WordPress.
What a one-name study website is for
The Guild describes the work of a study through its "seven pillars": data collection, analysis, synthesis, publicising, responding to enquiries, publication and preservation. A website supports at least four of them:
- Publicising the study, so people researching the name find you
- Responding to enquiries, through a contact form that does not expose your email address
- Publication of your findings: occurrences, distribution and reconstructed families
- Preservation, so the work survives you
What to publish
A useful one-name study site usually includes:
- An introduction to the name: its origins, meaning and the scope of your study.
- Variants and deviants: the spellings you include. In Guild terms, variants are established alternative spellings, while deviants are one-off errors or mis-transcriptions.
- Occurrences: births, marriages, deaths, census entries, wills and other records of the name, ideally searchable.
- Distribution: where the name is found, by county or country, and how that changed over time. A map makes this immediately clear.
- Reconstructed families: the family groups you have pieced together from the records.
- A contact form for descendants and fellow researchers.
- Sources and method, so others can judge and build on your work.
Decisions to make before you build
Privacy of living people
Recent records, such as births in the last hundred years, often relate to living people. UK and EU data protection law applies to them. Decide on a cut-off, typically 100 years, and publish nothing more recent unless the person has consented.
Record as found
Keep names, dates and places exactly as recorded, including the misspellings that make a deviant a deviant. Standardise only in separate fields used for sorting and mapping.
Plan for preservation
A study often represents decades of work. Choose tools that let you export everything in open formats, and write a note for whoever inherits the study. The Guild's Members' Websites Program offers free hosting for members' study websites, including WordPress, and will preserve a member's site as a permanent "legacy site" when they die or leave.
Your options for building the site
- The Guild's Members' Websites Program. Free hosting for Guild members, with a choice of platforms including WordPress, webtrees and TNG. See the Members' Websites Program.
- A general website builder such as Wix or Squarespace. Easy to design, but with no way to store, search or map occurrences.
- Genealogy software such as webtrees or TNG. Excellent for reconstructed families, but not designed around occurrences, variants and distribution.
- WordPress with a one-name study plugin. Your own site, with tools built for one-name work.
Building a one-name study site with WordPress
AP One-Name Studies is, as far as we know, the only WordPress plugin built specifically for one-name studies. It follows Guild definitions and runs on any WordPress site, including Guild-hosted WordPress.
Step 1: Set up your study and its spellings
Enter your registered surname, then add its variants and deviants. The plugin tags each occurrence with the spelling found in the record, so you can show how often each form appears.
Step 2: Bring in your occurrences
Enter records one at a time with a keyboard-first form that remembers the fields you repeat, or import spreadsheets in bulk. It recognises common FreeBMD and census layouts, understands dates such as "Q3 1861", "abt 1790" and "1751/52", and stores structured census details such as age, occupation, relationship and birthplace. Every import can be undone as a whole, so a mistaken import is easy to reverse.
Step 3: Map the name's distribution
The plugin produces a distribution table and a map of the historic counties of the UK and Ireland, keyed by Chapman county code. The paid version adds a worldwide map by country.
Step 4: Publish your study
One click creates the pages for you: study home page, variants, searchable occurrences, distribution and a contact form. They work with any WordPress theme, in a choice of heritage or modern styles. Nothing is public until you choose to publish the study.
Step 5: Protect living people
Recent records stay hidden from visitors according to your privacy settings, so you can record everything while publishing only what is appropriate.
Step 6: Export and preserve
You can export your occurrences and spellings as spreadsheets, your reconstructed people as GEDCOM, and the whole study as an archive with a plain-language note for whoever takes it on. As the plugin's documentation puts it, a study should outlive its author.
Linking to family trees
AP One-Name Studies can link occurrences to people in AP Family Trees and AP Family Archive, so families reconstructed from your study can be published as charts and person pages from the same data.
What the plugin does not do yet
One site holds one study, so running several studies means using WordPress multisite or separate sites. Distribution over time and Guild register-ready reports are planned for the paid version but not yet available. If you run a study and have views on what it needs, we would like to hear them.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be a Guild member to run a one-name study website?
No, but registering your study with the Guild of One-Name Studies brings recognition, support and access to its free website hosting.
Can I use AP One-Name Studies on Guild-hosted WordPress?
The Guild's Members' Websites Program offers WordPress, and AP One-Name Studies is a standard WordPress plugin. Check with the programme about installing plugins on your site.
What is the difference between a variant and a deviant?
A variant is an established alternative spelling of the surname. A deviant is an occasional mis-spelling or mis-transcription found in a record. Both belong in a one-name study, but they are usually shown separately.
Is AP One-Name Studies free?
Yes. The free version on WordPress.org includes occurrences, imports, variants, the county map, publishing and export. Pro adds a worldwide map, from $34.99 a year.
Get started
Set up your study, import your first records and publish when you are ready. For the wider picture, see the best WordPress genealogy plugins in 2026.
Disclosure: AncestorPress makes AP One-Name Studies, the plugin described in the second half of this guide. The first half applies whatever software you use.