I just went on the Profile update section of our Guild website and finally added a number of sections to my blank profile. This is something I originally drafted in Word and just had not gotten around to doing on the old website for any number of reasons. After watching the Next Stage seminar presentation about websites and listening to Susan Mastel's comments that our Profile is a very easy to make and share as a first step website and link to anyone searching our surname - I went ahead and did it. SUPER EASY - so thanks to our webmaster Nigel Osborne & his team working on the website, thanks to Kim Baldacchino and her team working on seminars (great presentations - watch them at the Guild YouTube channel) and thanks to presenter Susan Mastel for the gentle "kick in the pants" that I needed to get started. More to come! Have you updated or started your Guild Profile? Why not give it a go. Tessa Keough Guild of One-Name Studies, Member No. 5089 Keough (Keogh, Kough & Kehoe) Registered ONS

I'd like to echo Tessa's recommendation to start a Guild profile, but not from the perspective of a Guild member, but rather from what it looks like from someone looking at the Guild from outside. As a genealogist I have searched for a number of Guild surnames, and often found that they are being researched, but then when no more detailed information is given online - and in particular in a profile - about the scope of the study, or its status, I am often reluctant to make further enquiries. It's different when it's a surname very close to my family, but if it's something I've encountered more casually or laterally then the lack of a profile really does put me off contacting registered people. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this. And while some Guild members may not miss missing a few contacts here or there, I'm sure most of us are keen to hear from people interested in "our" names. I set up a Guild profile quite early on in the process, and have found it since to provide a really useful summary of the state of my research, so much so that I often refer people who email me direct to it to understand the scope and status of my study. In my profile I say briefly why I started tracing the name and its connection to my family tree, my views on variants, my take on the origin of the surname (different from the standard Scottish surname dictionary), and frequency and distribution of the name. One of the sections of my profile I think is most useful is the one that outlines where the particular strenghts in my data lie: in Scotland, England, and Ontario (Canada). Yes I am gathering information worldwide, but I have particularly good coverage of those places, and that helps to indicate to enquirers how likely I am at the moment to be able to help them with their queries. Also relevant to this is the bit early on in my profile page where I explain that if people! can trace back to an ancestor living before 1900 then I can probably fill out a lot of their family tree from that. And then my profile also has links to my DNA study, my Cavers ONS blog, the Facebook group, and my contact details. I don't think it need take very long to set up a profile, and formalising a description of your study can be good for your benefit, as well as for potential enquirers. So yes, as Tessa says, go ahead and do it :) And feel free to look at my Cavers one and those of other GOONS members to see how we've approached it. There's no one way of doing it, it can be a very personal thing, but I think it's well worth doing. And the sooner the better. Viv GOONS member 2847 (Cavers)