Praed, Praid, Prade and Praad are registered in Category C with the Guild of One-Name Studies - see http://www.one-name.org

For more information on the Praed and Praid families, join our group and receive "On Praed" a newsletter, issued twice a year. Email praed@one-name.org for details

A one-name study is a project researching all occurrences of a surname, as opposed to a particular pedigree (ancestors of one person) or descendancy (descendants of one person or couple). Some "one-namers" may restrict their research geographically, perhaps to one country, but true one-namers collect all occurrences world-wide.

The Guild only accepts true one-name studies for registration, although anyone with an interest in one-name studies is welcome to become a member. A one-name study may concentrate on aspects such as geographical distribution of the name and the changes in that distribution over the centuries, or may attempt to reconstruct the genealogy of as many lines as possible bearing the name. A frequent aim is to identify a single original location of the name, especially if the name appears to derive from a place.

But for many names, for example those indicating an occupation like Butcher, or a patronymic-type surname such as Peterson, there will not be a single origin. One-namers often make some attempt to quantify the rarity of their name. There is much scope for co-operation between one-namers and other genealogists and family historians.

Some people begin a one-name study as a way of researching a particular ancestral name. There is some use in having a complete listing of all occurrences of a surname from the IGI, from Civil Registration lists of births, marriages and deaths or from will indexes. A co-operative effort between people studying the same surname bears much fruit in eliminating alternatives when researching a parish and they have a good chance of discovering new relatives, depending of course, on how common the name is.

Maureen Selley praed@one-name.org
Praed Praid Prade Praad
Guild of One Name Studies 3445