There has been no shortage of studies on tribes, genealogies and noteworthy persons and places names in the Sudan. Much research has been done during the past decades. The results, however, are scattered and often inaccessible. As Heather J. Sharkey points out, Richard Leslie Hill felt this problem a long time ago, when he said in the preface to the second edition of his "Biographical dictionary of the Sudan", "Little books are born in the Sudan by the dozen, without imprints without date, even without title page. They circulate for a brief season and die without trace."