Synthesis

Synthesis is about using the results of your analysis to draw conclusions about your name and create “added value”. Important areas for synthesis are drawing conclusions on:

• The meaning of the surname

• The origin of the surname (using maps to help present these results)

• How and where name variants arose

• The main patterns of distribution change, including emigration and immigration

However, many other conclusions can be drawn, such as longevity, infant mortality, number of pregnancies, social conditions, impact of extended families, and distances between places of birth and marriage. Many social scientists could be interested in such material.

Most one-name researchers do not propose to “complete” their studies in the sense of exhaustively collecting every scrap of information in the world; they are regularly evaluating progress to see if the study is mature enough to yield reliable conclusions about the name and its users.