The most efficient way for One Name Study?

[Shaundm 0]

I am currently only researching my male family line as a one name study. I do not intend to research any other lines at all. I currently have my data in one project but with different data sets for the following sets:

 

•Data set 1 = People who are related to me in some way

•Data set 2 = People who have the same surname but are not related to me (yet!)

•Data set 3 = People who have a similar spelling or variant, who I want to record for information only (ie they were called by my surname but upon further investigation this appeared to be a miss spelling)

 

Is this the best way to store data in the 3 data sets? I am considering merging the 3 data sets into 1 and using flags to identify who is who.

 

The reasons why I may do this is due to the following annoyances:

 

•When I upload my info to second site, I need to merge all of the data into 1 dataset, then merge the duplicate sources (as the same source needs to be recorded in each data set), this can be time consuming.

•Each source may need to be recorded 3 times if it occurs in each data set.

 

Would this be a wise decision? I don’t want to do it if it is not the best way to do. How does everyone else deal with this at the moment?

 

Thanks

[RobinL 0]

I would strongly advise using a single data set to hold all 3 types of persons.

 

Use a flag to provide a method filtering lists, etc.

 

In fact, in my own one-name study, I have joined all my persons together with pseudo-fathers (as fathers of the end-of-line persons) so that I can find all persons that might become a family in the future.

 

I give these pseudo-fathers a birth date and death date and make them the father of all end-of-line persons born within that date range (typically 50 years), so some of these pseudo-persons have up to 300 children! This helps when looking for candidates to research for linkages.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

I totally agree with Robin. I am doing all my lines but at some point it can become a one name study to move back in time. I often will link guys in a common area with a common ancestor just to keep them together. Ole Wish I Knew Gee is my favorite ancestor.