Women not taking husband's surname

Erica, actually it would work much better with using only birth names and not polluting the database with married names, let alone multiple ones. Matching a female by birth name to a father's name and mother's first name is much easier than matching a female by married last name to a completely different last name of her parents especially if the mother is also known by her married name. How do you match a married female to parents with no names in common? How do you match a female ancestor to a birth record if you don't know her name at birth? Married names can help of course, but the mother will become a deadend without the mother's birth name.

Jason
Nobody looses their pedigree because of the name change
If you see Geni as place you will work on your pedigree only, fair enough.
I see it as the place to record history and person's life

aAnd it is not about married name only, names were changed sometimes by force or change of religion
See this for example
Stjepan Ahmed Hercegović

Jason part of how you're confusing me is the emphasis on women. This is not, to me, about "married names.". This is chasing the family tree backwards - and on a collaborative site, we soon hit a situation where there are "last names" but no "birth surnames.". In the US this is quite recent. I mentioned several scenarios:

1. Name Anglicized from a name in an alphabet or language not known or used by contemporary family researchers. Without two fields it is impossible for us to even recognize our own parents / grandparents.

2. Persons born in cultures that did not have surnames but did acquire one later in life.

This system would, for example, lead to US persons born in slavery in 1860 to have no surname in Geni. Which goes against facts.

Ahmed pasa was his name, I have added his birth name and his fmother' and father's surname

Jason no one is saying don't put in the birth surname! There are TWO fields (and display name, and nickname / AKA). Just put in all the information known.

What about his wife? Turks had only names, Ahmed's wife was known by his surname, as the one married to man from Hercegovina
I have added 'Bayezid's daughter to link her to her father
And BTW his Surname defines a province now, Hercegovina.

I should also make clear that of course if the birth surname is unknown or there wasn't one of course the field should be blank.

Erica, I use '?', and in cases as the one above I use description

I think that works great for many profiles Jadra. I could not however do it on my direct ancestry / recent times. It was entirely impossible to enter known grandparents with a question mark. So in that case I used the Anglicized name and our guesses at possible Cyrillic notations in the "about".

Erica, I only use '?' if I know nothing about the person
whichever version of the name you have is what you should write as this is how they have been known by, that is perfectly appropriate
BTW, Many genealogies are done using other documents, ie land ownerships, not necessarily birth certficates

I am wading through land deeds in Virginia! Actually there's all kinds of wonderful archival information in unexpected sources. Someone used records kept by a mining safety commission to track down death information for his ancestor - which led to the birth names.

I have a similar thing, a document about ownership of family mills - it goes back hundred of years to prove ownership and rules of inheritance

Sheesh - the only thing to do with the fact of the repeated occurrences of these discussions about maiden/ married names on Geni, is to use them as a 'well' of information about how varied is the world's choices about surnames for women.

http://www.geni.com/people/Agneta-%C3%85hrberg/6000000012866905361, how fascinating to hear how Swedes use intonation to indicate gender - without even realizing it themselves. I loved that story!

Do we have a project where every nationality can record their country's contemporary naming conventions? How interesting that would be see,

Can I add my voice to Jadra and Erica's defense of Geni's current naming fields?

If you want to see ONLY birth surnames (maiden names in countries where this descriptor has meaning for women), and hate the idea of seeing any additional names a person might be legally/ historically searchable on in their lifetime; it's easy on Geni:
just use the appropriate Geni Display option to silence all additional information entered.

If you are arguing that the Last Name field should be used ALSO as the Birth Surname field, that is a different argument altogether to the one being had here; and so are the reasons you need to provide - as they require the deletion of millions of legal name changes recorded by Geni users as valid historical data.

Digression - I thought I would get attention with the "mining" reference.

http://www.geni.com/projects/All-That-Glitters-MINING-the-world/8212

Reports, including pedigrees, are data mining. They are extractions from a database of more data than you need to see at that moment.

And, Sharon, I disagree, because it's genealogically wrong, and it's not a display thing to me. But we will probably need to take that problem later when and if changes in the naming fields come. In the mean time, I have no problems with using the few fields of today, I just write the first recorded and sourced lastname a person has in the Last name field, where it genealogically should be, and all other names later in life under AKA.

Isn't the "first recorded name" fhe same as "birth surname" ???? (confused)

Why so confused, ofcourse it is, and I write them in the fields that are genealogically correct.

To me, the record for the "birth surname" associates with the "birth surname" field in Geni. So we understand that the same and enter the data and citation the same.

The confusion then comes on the definition of "last name.". To me, "last name" is positional - the "last name documented.". To have this second field available to associate records with has been critical in building a documented tree, as death records may not be the same as birth records, and I need both.

The AKA/ nickname field is multiple, not unique; and the display name field is narrative.

So in using Geni as a documentation database I am well served by having separate dedicated fields for name at birth and name at death.

I also see no conflict with the traditional pedigree view by using your own display options.

And the genealogists write the names in the fields that is common for them, the way they have been taught, and the way new genealogists and family researchers still are being taught when they take courses in genealogy.

The name fieds in the genealogical software Geni is not different from any other online or offline genealogical software except thet Geni is lacking a lot of optional fields, and that is the main problem.

Allmost all genealogical software have a name field called Birth name, but is usually is under the optional names and therfore the name at birth/first recorded name found, is the persons main name in a genealogical software.

That is how it is, and that is how it going to be in the future. It's impossible to change how names are written in genealogy worldwide, especially as this way is both tested and found working. Just too sad that Geni isn't up to the task yet, and making these discussions appear once and awhile. Also too sad that the devs at Geni has made the mistakes they have done when it comes to the name fields, which have made things worse and as you say, it will be hard to correct.

Why is there difficulty distinguishing TWO fields - birth surname (first recorded) and last name (last recorded)? Is this about field matching in GEDCOM exports?

There are two surname fields for a reason. The Last Name field doesn't have to be the same as the Birth Surname. Purists have the Birth Surname field and the option to display only that. The Last Name field is a start toward offering more name variation fields.

The genealogy standard is left over from the days of paper charts. And, it comes from a parochial, Euro-American view of names. There's no reason it needs to drive the world of computers. Let's just lobby Geni for the ability to enter all documented names, and to choose display options.

I will start calling you Ditto, Justin

And why should Geni, as maybe the only genealogical software, write names in another way than almost every genealogist and other genealogical software does?

The genealogical standard is absolutly not a left over from the paper charts as it is very much alive and used today. Calling us parochial doesn't help much and you can do a lot better without calling us names, just because we use and teach the genalogical standard of how names should be written in a genealigical software. This is way below your standard, Justin. I'm very unhappy with you right now.

I disagree vividly that Geni should adopt another way of writing names than what is common in most other genealogical software.

It will not help the site by being a stranger to the genalogical world, where genealogists will not feel comfortable or maybe not welcome. And in the long run Geni.com will loose to competition if this is going to be the attitude. The site will also get bad publicity from the genealogical world if it alienates the genealogists and how we write names.

So, please, do not advocate too hard for Geni loose the genealogical way of writing names, the site has allready a bad reputation among some in the genealogical world, let's not make it harder for the site to survive.

Erica, there is no difficulty distinguishing the two fields, Last name is for the first lastname a person has or the first lastname in a persons life that we can find. Birth surname is just an optional name used in the few cases where a person for instance is adopted and has changed names a short time after birth. In fact, the field Birth name (or Birth surname) is one of the most rearly used fields for a persons name in a genealogical software, so for us genealogists is not normal to even look at it. Erica, this has nothing to with Gedcom, this has to do with genealogy, do you understand that? We write the first name we can find of a person in the Last name field, allways and with no exception. That is where it belongs, that is where we have been taught to write it, that is the most common place to write the first lastname we find, and that is where we still teach people to write this name.

All other and later names in life goes under optional or other names in our genealogical software, and this is the one major thing that Geni is lacking at the moment.

Why is it so hard to understand the way we write names and that it is the software here at geni.com that is lacking the options that other genealogical software has, and that it is this lack of options that is making the problem?!!!

I guess you just have to live with us genealogists writing names this way, it is what we are customed to, and we know it works, since it is still being taught to do it this way. We are probably never going to change this.

I think all that's needed is language dependant definitions of the Geni fields and appropriate mapping schema to other popular family research and professional genealogical software, and all is fine.

Remi, am i correct to say that in the last name field you enter a persons name as it appears on their own birth record, if their own birth record is not available you record what ever name they first appear with in documents in the last name field. Any subsequent names that they may take on go in the aka field?

Remi, I disagree with you if you are saying that the genealogical standard did not originate because of the limitations of paper records.

In the old paper forms there was room for one name only. If I wanted to search through hundreds of family group sheets, I needed to be sure that everyone else was using the same name. Thus: a standard to use the birth name. It was an easy and obvious solution to a complicated problem. I still use it on paper records.

But, it also becomes absurd at times. I'll use my father Dudley Howery aka Ridge Durand as an example. On a family group sheet with his third wife, you'll see his birth name and hers -- but neither name is the name on their marriage license. You won't find their marriage record if that's all you have. You won't ever find her using his birth name as a married name. And, you won't find him listed under his birth name on the birth certificates of those children.

The reason we put up with this silliness is that we all know the data structure is artificial. It's just an easy way to summarize (perhaps inaccurately) the real data. The genealogy standard says I have to do it that way because I on a paper record I get to use only one name. Knowing that the info is presented falsely, I can re-construct the real information each time I need it.

However, in the world of computers I can enter all my dad's names. (In a perfect world, I should also be able to associate a name with each event.) Using computers, I can have it both ways. I can enter his birth name, and on Geni the purists can choose to see only that. I can also give him a display name that calls him by the name under which he became moderately famous as a cowboy artist. And, until Geni gives us some better name tools, I can enter his Lakota name as an AKA.

Make no mistake: the genealogical standard evolved from the limitations of a paper system, and Geni supports that system. There is no need to get riled up about the fact that Geni also provides support for a system that seems more natural to some non-genealogists. You and every other purist can still have it your way by selecting the appropriate user options.

Remi,

I don't understand why you take it as a personal attack when I say that the genealogical standard is parochial.

You and I have been through this a dozen times. The standard reflects the customs of northwestern Europe, which give a certain primacy to the birth name.

It does not, for example, reflect the customs of the traditional Lakota, for whom the birth name is generally a generic, throw-away name. For them, the important name, the real name, is one acquired later in life.

It does not reflect the customs of the traditional Navajo, who have taboos against using real names, against speaking the names of the dead, etc.

It does not reflect the customs of the Balkans where the real names are those the individual actually used, not the foreign forms recorded in official records.

It doesn't even reflect the customs of ancient Rome, where the surname is (usually) the second in a string of three, four, or more names.

The genealogical standard reflects the customs of northwestern Europe, which until the age of European expansion was just a small corner of the world and of history. The fact that it is now the dominant culture around the globe doesn't mean it isn't parochial to think that European customs need to be imposed on everyone else whether they fit or not.

Alex, that is more or less correct.

Genealogists enter names with the earliest names we find. Like my great grandmothers name: Her name at birth was Karen Marie Olave Honningdalsnes. She married Ole Johan Nygaard.

Her name is written as Karen Marie Olave Larsdatter Honningdalsnes because that is her name at birth.

If Geni.com had the possibility to write her name at death, I would do so under her optional names. But since Geni.com doesn't have that possibility, I am not able to record other lastnames while other offline and online genealogical software do have this possibility.

No, Erica, what is needed is the possibility to write all and every names a person had during his/her lif under an optional name field.

This is not language dependent, and it's obvious to me that you don't have much experience with different genealogical software.

Please get to know these a lot more before you, before you say anymore!