A one-place study researches everyone who lived in one place, rather than one family or one surname. The Society for One-Place Studies describes it as "a perfect combination of family and local history". It might be a village, a parish, a street, a single building or a burial ground. Done well, it becomes the best record of that place's people anywhere, and a website is how it reaches descendants, local historians and the people who live there now.
Quick answer
To start a one-place study, choose a real place with clear boundaries, decide your time span, then collect every record of its people: censuses, parish registers, civil registration indexes, monumental inscriptions, directories and newspapers. Record each person as found, link them into households and buildings, and publish what you learn on a study website, keeping recent records private. Registering with the Society for One-Place Studies costs £10 a year.
In this guide
Choosing your place
The Society leaves the boundaries to you, but the place must be real and must exist, or have existed. Good choices share three things:
- A clear boundary. A historic parish or township boundary is easier to work with than "the area around the church".
- A manageable size. A village of a few hundred people is a lifetime's rewarding work. A market town may need a narrower focus, such as one street.
- Surviving records. Check that the parish registers, censuses and maps you will need exist and can be reached.
Decide your time span too. Many studies run from the start of the parish registers to the 1921 or 1939 records, and add later material as it becomes available.
The records to collect
| Record | What it gives you | Where to find it (UK) |
|---|---|---|
| Census returns, 1841-1921 | Every household, every ten years, with ages, occupations and birthplaces | Ancestry, Findmypast, FreeCEN |
| Parish registers | Baptisms, marriages and burials, often back to the 1500s | County record offices, Findmypast, FreeREG |
| Civil registration indexes | Births, marriages and deaths from 1837 | FreeBMD, GRO |
| Monumental inscriptions | Gravestones and memorials, often with family detail | Local family history societies, your own surveys |
| 1939 Register | A snapshot of every household on the eve of war | Ancestry, Findmypast |
| Directories, tithe and enclosure records | Who owned, rented and worked the land | Record offices, online archives |
| Newspapers | Events, court cases, sales and obituaries | British Newspaper Archive |
| Maps | The buildings and fields your people used | National Library of Scotland historic maps, record offices |
Organising a one-place study
A one-place study quickly outgrows a spreadsheet. Three principles keep it manageable:
- Record everything as found. Keep names, dates and places exactly as written in each source, including misspellings. Standardise only in separate fields for sorting and search.
- Separate records from people. Enter each record once, then link the people it mentions. The same Mary Smith may appear in a baptism, three censuses and a burial.
- Think in households and buildings. A place study is about who lived where, and when. Linking people to houses lets you show a building's occupants across a century.
Privacy of living people
Recent records, such as the 1921 census or births in the last hundred years, often relate to people who are still alive or whose children live in the village today. UK GDPR applies to living people, not the dead. Decide a cut-off, usually 100 years, and do not publish anything more recent without consent.
Registering your study
The Society for One-Place Studies keeps a register of studies around the world. Membership is £10 a year, and registering a study is free for members. Registration makes your study findable by researchers and descendants, and the Society encourages members to add an in-depth report about their study place.
Building a one-place study website on WordPress
AP One-Place Studies is a free WordPress plugin built for this kind of study. It runs on any WordPress site, stores everything in your own database, and holds one study per site.
Step 1: Set up your place
Define your study place, then the places within it, down to individual buildings. Each building can record who lived there and when.
Step 2: Import your records
Import spreadsheets of records with reusable mapping templates. The plugin includes ready-made layouts for FreeBMD, UK censuses, parish registers and monumental inscriptions, so a transcription can go straight in. The original spelling, date and place are stored exactly as recorded.
Step 3: Link people and households
Each person mentioned in a record is kept with their role, such as child, father or witness. Census households can be followed from one census to the next, and a surname index groups spelling variants automatically.
Step 4: Add maps
Embed OpenStreetMap, uMap, Google My Maps or National Library of Scotland historic maps to show where your people lived.
Step 5: Publish, with living people protected
Publish a searchable index of occurrences that visitors can filter by name, record type, year and place. A living-person cut-off, 100 years by default, keeps recent records off the public pages.
Step 6: Export and preserve
You can export everything as CSV, including the as-recorded originals, and download the whole study as a single archive of documented JSON and CSV files. A study often represents decades of work, and it should outlive both its author and any piece of software.
The paid version adds contributor roles with a review queue for volunteers, a compiled study report and archive restore.
Linking to family trees and one-name studies
If your study overlaps with a surname you research, AP One-Name Studies works on the same principles for a surname rather than a place. Families you reconstruct can be published as charts and person pages with AP Family Trees and AP Family Archive.
Frequently asked questions
What is a one-place study?
A study of all the people who lived in one place, such as a village, parish, street or building, across time. It combines family history with local history.
How big should my one-place study be?
Small enough to finish the core records. A single parish or village is a common choice; a town may be better approached one street at a time.
Do I need to join the Society for One-Place Studies?
No, but membership is £10 a year and lets you register your study, which helps others find it.
Can I run more than one study on one website?
AP One-Place Studies holds one study per WordPress site. To run several, use WordPress multisite or separate sites.
What about the 1921 census and other recent records?
Record them, but think carefully before publishing. Many people in recent records are still alive or have close living family. A 100-year cut-off is a sensible default.
Start your study website
Set up your place, import your first records and publish when you are ready. AP One-Place Studies is free on WordPress.org.
Disclosure: AncestorPress makes AP One-Place Studies, the plugin described in the second half of this guide. The first half applies whatever software you use.