?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother) - ?? ?? is my 29th great grandmother.

Why propose a sabotage in the world tree? The main reason for this profiles existence, (who could be renamed N.N.). is to prevent the daughter to be attached to any of the other wives. Having ?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother) here makes Geni a little bit more of both a serious and reliable site.

In ancestry.com you can have a father without a mother listed. It seems that Geni.com could do the same.

Have we been through the entire list of mother possibilities?
1) Åsa Håkonsdatter;
2) Gyda Eriksdatter;
3) Ragnhild Eiriksdotter;
4) Svanhild Eysteinsdotter;
5) Snøfrid Svåsesdotter
6) Åshild Ringsdotter

No, Geni is not a book, things that works on paper does not work here at all, someone will sooner or later attache profiles wrongly just because they can.

I think "?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother) - ?? ??" is attached incorrectly as a profile in geni.com
It should be removed.

You want to fabricate a name on her?

The fact is that Ingebjørg's mother is unknown (ref for example Heimskringla) and the use of ?? ?? is intentional, - it does not create any matches as for example NN would do, and it is understood in all languages/alphabets.

M.Foss N. You are a new user of Geni, so these things seem to be weird at first. I suggest starting from basic genealogy and also realising that you have same ancestors basicly with all around you when you go 600 years back, that is pure mathematics. Not "only you have pure line to some ancestor, and the rest of thousands of people not." :) This all will get easier when you get to know and understand more of genealogy itself. I have been doing this 30 years now.

It s better to consentrate to building your tree? at first and checking out first of all your basic trees near you, parish registers and so on. Geni is research program, not a book complited, it fills up as you explore.

Bjørn, instead of being so aggressive, you could change the name to N.N.
I don't like it but it's better than unprofessional question marks.

Dear Saga, I'm not new around here. Thanks for the advice though!

private She shows as my gg also, and I have no issue with how Bjørn has styled the name. I hope my input matters also?

My area seems to mostly be colonial America, and in published works, a ? or [-?-] (and other variations) is frequently seen.

It seems an odd marking for an unknown parentage. My understanding is that you leave it blank. If you don't know the surname (e.g. on mother's side), you just don't put it in as it has no relevance.

Another thing that bothers me... If you don't know the mother's name, how do you know the precise date of her birth 850?

You cannot have a blank node on Geni, it needs a name. Personally I mentally use a circa date for anything without a known date. If known and published “between” dating, but we didn’t have that available as a function on Geni until ... ??

Common ways of indicating Unknown profile given and surnames

NN Common user abbreviation for No Name
Blank
Empty
Missing
Not Known
NoName
Placeholder
Temporary
Desconocida also Desondocido Spanish for Unknown
Inconnu also Inconnue French for Unknown
Sconosciuto also Sconosciuta Italian for Unknown
unbekannt German for Unknown
okänd Sweedish for Unknown
onbekend Dutch for Unknown
tundmatu also teadmata also pole+teada Estonian for Unknown"
tuntematon also ei+tietoa Finnish for Unknown"

You cannot have a blank node on Geni?

This person's father and mother has a blank node:
"?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother) - ?? ??

You are not understanding me.

It is not technically possible on Geni to “not” have a mother profile for Ingebjørg. Her father had multiple partners. One cannot keep her in the correct relationships without a node representing her mother.

Some of us are original Geni members since 2007. We know and have lived all the issues. :)

Mette, - the names you suggest will only be understood by english speaking users and even worse result in getting merge suggestions with other profiles.

This happened a couple of times which caused that the profile had to be re-created, something you see by the low number of managers compared to the others.

Leaving it blank will just tell that something is missing or not researched.

The name "?? ??" with the suffix "(Ingebjørg's mother)" tells that that the profile is a result of a research, - reflecting the fact that Ingebjørg's mother is not known and prevent false/fabricated genealogy about Ingebjørg's mother that you find on other sites is inserted, and again the letter ? is universal.

I would suggest geni.com comes up with a "best practices" to avoid such discussions. As Erica shows us, there is no standard for what to do, and this odd profile has been discussed since 2010. Oh well!

Are you sure the mother could not be any of the following:
1) Åsa Håkonsdatter;
2) Gyda Eriksdatter;
3) Ragnhild Eiriksdotter;
4) Svanhild Eysteinsdotter;
5) Snøfrid Svåsesdotter
6) Åshild Ringsdotter

Good night from California!

We do have practices which are language, era and location dependent, and curators who make the best choices for those areas.

https://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Naming_Conventions

Naming Placeholders

For unknown names that require a placeholder, please use NN (a Latin abbreviation) or "???" and not language dependent words like:
unknown
ukjent
okänd
desconocida
inconnu
In some cases, you may find more disambiguating information such as "Wife of Roger" ...

Thanks for the scoop Erica, I found it...

Naming Placeholders
For unknown names that require a placeholder, please use NN (a Latin abbreviation) or "???" and not language dependent words.

We have a few more question marks. Oh well:
"?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother) - ?? ??

Night night

It actually should be N.N. It’s a placeholder. FNU and MNU are frequently used in print (still) but fading out in use on the internet. American genealogists in published articles use “unknown.”

Thanks Erica, that's what I've been telling Ulf and Bjørn.

I think NN is appropriate.

Sorry - I meant if using NN, it should have periods. N.N. not NN.

As I said previously, and as has been posted on the Geni Wiki since 2010, ?? is an acceptable placeholder for Geni profiles, and Bjørn has explained twice now and in detail his reasoning. I, as a descendant (according to Geni) respect his decision and thank him for his curating.

I copied this straight from geni,com in case you want to change it.

"Naming Placeholders
For unknown names that require a placeholder, please use NN (a Latin abbreviation) or "???" and not language dependent words."

I as a descendant also respect Bjørns and Ericas desicions and thank you both for curating, there are so much to do for you and I think this has taken enough time.

""?? ??, (Ingebjørg's mother) - ?? ??" could be any of the following women:

1) Åsa Håkonsdatter;
2) Gyda Eriksdatter;
3) Ragnhild Eiriksdotter;
4) Svanhild Eysteinsdotter;
5) Snøfrid Svåsesdotter
6) Åshild Ringsdotter

Have the above women been ruled out?

FYI "NN" will not match in our search engine... we've specifically excluded it, along with "unknown", "living" and a few common suffixes and prefixes.

Mike, would you please clarify?

Are you saying do NOT use "NN"? Or are you saying to use it because the search engine will specifically exclude it and it won't affect the results.

I've seen "N.N." used by curators, for example:
N.N.

Placeholders is a whole discussion group:
https://www.geni.com/discussions/87301

private Mike is saying neither.

But the genealogical standard is using N.N as it means the latin words "Nomen Nescio", translated to english "unknown name"

In our genealogy different parts of the persons name may be unknown, therefore unknown given names may be written "nn" and unknown lastnames may be written "NN".

A full unknown name may be written "nn NN", where "nn" is the first and middle names and "NN" is the Lastname.

Remi, I suggested "N.N." but was totally REJECTED.

Yes, I know Latin for "Nomen Nescio", but Americans call it Not kNOwn. LOL.

Have a nice night (or morning, depending on your time zone).

At the time of me writing this the clock is 05.42. And us Europeans use a 24 hour clock.

Have a nice evening in California, Mette.