Maughan Home

This is a pro-tem landing page for the The Maughan Society website, currently in development and due for initial release before Christmas 2008; see here for our latest update. 

 

The site is dedicated to Maughans past & present and will include pedigrees from Maughan families, candidate names which have not been researched or connected as yet plus details of notable Maughans from around the world.

 

Did you know the first dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight of the USA was by a Maughan? Or that there is a lake in the Philippines’ named after him?  That the Chief Druid in the UK during the last century was a Maughan, and that another was one of the founding members of the LDS Church in Utah?  That there was a Saint Maughan many years ago?  There is also a Maughan library in London, and another Maughan is behind the recent huge popularity of Aloe Vera.  Despite our relatively low numbers (estimated world population of Maughans at the moment is around 100,000 - 0.002% of the world population) we do get around a bit :)

 

The Maughan Society

So what is the The Maughan Society about?  It was formed in 1998 by Mike Maughan, son of Ron Maughan of England.  Ron did much research on his family history during his lifetime, most without the benefit of the internet, and Mike inherited these studies.  Whilst Mike is still pursuing his own pedigree he is also interested in developing a community of Maughans worldwide and to this end created a Maughans list some 10 years ago.  You can join our Maughan Society mail list now and find out more; talk with other Maughans worldwide and we’ll keep you up to date about the opening of the Maughan site.

 

Origins of the Maughan

There are many theories amongst the Maughans regarding the origin our name, but most eventually point back to Ireland where the Maughan surname is alive & well in Western Eire in & around Counties Galway & Mayo.  The Society has chosen Maughan.info as the primary domain but we also maintain maughan.ie as an alternative domain name for the site.

 

It has been suggested the surname originated from an Irish chieftain in the early centuries AD, and that there are also stories of a travelling Saint Maughan who came over to England from Ireland in the 6th Century AD to “convert the English heathens to Christianity”.  There is certainly historical evidence via place names and ancient records to support this, although the strongest include migration from Ireland to France, then to Cornwall in England, then to Monmouthshire in South Wales where that line seems to die out.

 

The biggest concentration of Maughans in England is in the Northeast, especially around the Sunderland, Gateshead & Newcastle areas where the surname is relatively common.  We have been able to trace Maughans from the west coast at or near the modern England/Scotland border – Lanercost Priory – and there is evidence of Maughans historically farming up near Hadrian’s Wall (Brampton, Haltwhistle) and then following the Tyne Valley south towards the lead mining industry at Alston in Cumbria.

 

One of the strongest lines of Maughans in the US is that of Peter Maughan, who was born in Cumberland (now Cumbria) & worked at the Alston mines before starting his epic journey across to the US and eventually to Fort Maughan in Utah (now Wellsville).

 

FAQs

  • When will all of these wonderful things happen?
    • As soon as they do, but hopefully well before Christmas 2008.  This is far from a trivial undertaking, so we will do what we can as we can.  You can help, too.
  • I don’t agree with your summary above.
    • It is not intended to be definitive and needs developing in much more detail from the various reference sources available.  Got something to say?
  • How do I get involved with other Maughans?
  • Where do I send suggestions / complaints / etc.?

 

The MaughanHome Project; updates

 

Date

Update

Issues raised or resolved

Notes

2008-11-28

Society poll has chosen Maughan.info as the primary domain and confirmed the name as The Maughan Society.

Point Maughan.info to MaughanHome

Will software work without being hacked/reinstalled?

-          TNG

-          MediaWiki

-          Ap

-          mailman lists

-          issue tracker

Maughan.info/.biz/.org mirrored to Maughan.ie as a pro-tem measure

 

Yahoo message archive now added to new list; old list closed but still pointing enquirers our way

Many email addresses bouncing; lost members or changed emails?

Need to list bounces to list & update

 

Considering opening up TNG for general scrutiny

Keep existing data as test or live?

 

 

Maughan Society logo

Need to find/create one

Leonard Maughan will coordinate

 

Maughan Society merchandise

Need logo/crest first – see above

Need eternal fulfilment agency or our own online store & backup suppliers

Need to look at costs/benefits of either option

Online store already available to our site – just needs to be set up

 

Maughan Society membership

Chargeable or not?

How much much?

Member benefits?

 

 

Maughan Society site running costs

How to support ongoing?

 

 

Maughan Society charter

What do we need?

What form of corporate structure do we need?

Where should we incorporate?

Officers?

Look at HMRC charter

 

 

 

 

2008-11-12

First update; we have settled on a genealogy webserver package called The Next Generation, which is already in use in a number of web-hosted genealogy sites; we have around 2,000 names in the server right now for testing and all seems well.

TNG is already in use elsewhere with >1,000,000 names

 

 

Alongside TNG we have installed a wiki for extended notes, articles etc.  The next challenge is to complete the back-linking of the genealogy program into the wiki, and then later to build a public-facing separate front end for the wiki.

Extending the security model to the public-facing wiki.  Public access read-only; updates via logged-in members only.

MediaWiki is the one used for Wikipedia.

 

We are also testing issue-tracking tools for general research issues.

 

 

 

We have been granted a Creative Commons license for the site & our contents.

 

 

 

Site security will be based on the model built into TNG; the public can browse but only logged-in members can make updates.

Access to information about living people?  Restrict to logged-in members only?

 

 

Our study has been registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies.

 

 

 

The new Maughans mailing list is up and all members from the old yahoo list moved over.  We are in the process of extracting the message archive from the old yahoo list and this will be added to the new list archives as soon as it is ready.

 

 

 

A dedicated mailing list for the MaughanHome Project Team has been set up, which will help to keep the internal project discussions out of the main list.

 

 

 

A test installation of an advanced poll manager is being tested - as one would expect, I suppose J

 

 

 

We will shortly be setting up a links-exchange page so we can start getting noticed by Google.

If you are willing to include a link back to the site here, send us your site link and we’ll add it in. 

linkname : what it is we’re linking to.

 

The Maughan Society is in the process of being formalised, and will be incorporated into an appropriate form once we have completed our relevant research.

Suggestions for an appropriate formal vehicle for the Society, and where to register it?

 

 

We’re looking at options for a “front-end” for the site; various CMS options are available including Drupal & Joomla.

Any user experience on these?

Linking their security model into TNG/wiki?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© The Maughan Society 2008 - last updated 2008-11-28