Naming Conventions for the Historical Tree on Geni

Janice,

So use the "maiden name" field, set the option, and you're golden.

This is not really an issue about "what is the standard", although some would like you to think it is. It's an issue of which Geni field should be used for what information.

Bluntly, if -- as some insist -- the maiden name should be in the ";last name" field, what is the maiden name for?

Erica, you misunderstand a couple of major things.

In the sources, the names are written accordingly to what ever the person writing the source felt like writing the names. In our genelaogy we write the names according to genealogical standards, whatever how their names were written in the sources. We document how their names were written in the different sources, but we keep the same main name of the person in our genealogical database. And that name is the name the person got at birth, no exceptions. And it really doesn't matter where the person was born. In Norway, in England, in South Africa or in the US.

And I agree with Pam, Geni has a programming/database problem as long as their naming policy is wrong accordingly to genealogical standards. Everyone of us should write names the same way, and that should be accordingly to the genewalogical standard. I now that you will not like this, but sorry mac, you loose.

I hope by now, that you have understood what the genealogical standard says about how to write names in a genealogical database. More or less every genealogist across the world are keeping to this standard of how to name their familymembers, and you should really do the same, no matter how you feel about it. And if you haven't understood by know, or still have some questions, please send me message, and I'll explain it to you. I've several crashcourses over the years. Mostly in norwegian though.

Some battles you win and some battles you loose, be prepared to loose this one about how to write names.

Remi,

I choose to work with the database and data entry at hand.

Your requests for changes in database / data entry screens are best addressed to geni through help@geni.com. I'm just another user and cannot impact it any more than you can.

I do not like the way you are phrasing it as winners and losers. It's not a sweepstakes, it's a creative and collaborative process. If you want to collaborate, then consensus must be reached.

And with all due respect, I don't think you are not working in the same areas of the tree I am. We do not seem to have ancestors in common until further back in time -- and for pre 1600 I am totally on board the consensus more or less already reached, which happily enough, complies with the standards you are requesting. If it does not please contribute to the Geni Wiki for those areas.

Malc. is English and therefore he and I have a more recent shared ancestry. So the consensus he and I have reached (and I do believe we have reached one, and I'm very glad for it) is more directly relevant to my family tree building *and* my curatorial scope.

I already listed out a few of the historical periods, countries of origin, and languages that need help establishing a best practice through the Geni Wiki. It would be much appreciated if you focused your efforts there.

Remi, my friend, I think your diplomacy is lacking a bit here, and your efforts will likely backfire if you are trying to persuade someone about something while doing what we call in American English "rubbing their nose in it." This approach tends to make the other person resentful and resistant rather than conciliatory. Please re-read my note above about seeking "common ground."As Erica says, this is about collaborating, so let's all try to work to seek the best solution for all of us.

The point we are all agreeing on, I think, is that Geni's entry fields and naming allocation programs are (1) culturally biased, (2) not based entirely on genealogical standards, and (3) not sufficient for what we all need. Rather than sending Remi to help@geni.com (which is ridiculous, since Ashiya can't make these executive decisions either and so your help ticket will be returned with a form letter response!), we need to all work together to design a proposal for Noah and the engineering team about how we would like to see the naming fields and operations slightly re-designed. Will that stop us arguing and start us working constructively and collaboratively, perhaps? Enough dogma--let's design the ideal program.

Pam,

I do indeed think that an excellent Project, and would like the see the Geni Wiki used for it, does that make sense?

However I expect the users of the American tree will be adequately represented? After all, it's my family history I'm trying to build, and I have to be allowed to easily do so, or I'll just move to an application that does allow for that.

Erica, you may not realize it since I'm focusing my curating efforts on the 11th century these days, but I have almost 40,000 profiles on Geni that are in the American tree. The vast majority of my genealogical research is in America from the mid-1600s to the early 1900s. So I am definitely a representative of the "American tree."

But what I am proposing is culture-neutral: it's a form with more open categories and fields, not an imposed dogmatic system that all must adhere to. It's the limits we place upon those fields, and the names that we give them, that make it culture-specific (and therefore ethnocentric).

We could use the wiki, but I think it would be easier for us to agree on a proposal for Geni naming fields and operations right here in the discussions. It seems that a lot of people are not comfortable with using the wiki, I've found. So we'll get the most involvement if we use the discussion, I think.

But I feel attacked on this forum, Pam. I feel ridiculed and invalidated.

Yet if I walk away from the issue and the discussion, my curatorial work is impacted and affected. I am between a rock and a hard place here and trying to figure it out. To me, moving the contentiousness off discussions and on to the Wiki will help ... but then I risk decisions being made without my input, and an end result that something that's already difficult become even more so.

I am good with the current set of records for the US tree. I am not looking for any change at all (except to have LAST NAMES so I don't have a record that reads Alice (no other info)) to deal with. I don't need a standard naming convention, the ones people are using currently is good enough for me. (That's what I was saying about the geni interface being intuitive for Americans.)

There is enough difficulty in this curating task. Dealing with ancestor records in other languages is hard enough. Can we agree to leave it alone and someone ELSE spearhead the request for development changes? Can we agree for a respectful tone change in discussions where my input is not belittled?

This is why I feel that Geni’s Curators is a bad and ill conceved idea.
I have found problems with the work of two ‘curators’ who I have reported to Gene, only to be told to start a discussion. It looks like Geni wants to wash its hands of it.

Pam – I am not getting at you, and you are trying to do a good job in following the set guidelines.
It is unfortunate that Geni has given powers to some who may feel that they can do their own thing and try and force it onto others.

Reg,

What have I ever forced on you? I've appreciated your delineation of best practices for Welsh name data entry.

If I was one of the two curators you complained about, I did point out the curatorial program was two weeks old at the time, and invited you to correct records yourself through the "merge center." That's where I send my merge requests. I would just ask that you leave post 1600 US records alone. I certainly expect you to correct records in your expert areas and ancestry, though, and would find that enormously helpful.

Erica

If I find a mistake in the geographical information post 1600 'US' records, I will correct it, in accordance with the "Naming Convention" as laid down.

I repeat it is only the geographical information.

The names I find in my American (note not US) ancestors' profiles do not require changing as they already conform to the Convention's guidelines.

It's funny: earlier we have had it stated that the reason that titles should be placed in a particular field is to help identify which individual of several similarly named people is the one you're looking for.

Now we're being instructed to OMIT information that is far more relevant for the exact same purpose, on some misguided attempt to allegedly adhere to some standard.

This is nonsense. And Remi and others who insist on trying to pretend that They Are Correct are doomed to fail, because they are not correct, and in fact they are misinterpreting those "standards" to suit their desires.

FACT: There is no "standard" which defines a "primary name" for individuals. If Remi or anyone tries to argue otherwise, they are simply proving that they DO NOT UNDERSTAND DATABASES.

FACT: Geni has provided a field for the name at birth, and has provided options so that those who want to produces pedigrees matching common genealogical practice can do so.

FACT: duplicating birth names in the "maiden name" field and the "Last name" field provides ZERO benefit when the individual was always known by one name, and REDUCES the information available when the individual was known by more than one.

FACT: attempting to prohibit the "last name" field from containing the name that the individual was best known by will create more work for people merging records, and provide no benefit at all. NB: every argument advanced for duplicating the birth name in the last name field is addressed by setting the display option. EVERY SINGLE ARGUMENT! This extra work is inevitable because of the design of Geni: the first thing it asks a new user is what they name IS. They do not ask "what was your birth name?".So anyone trying to pretend that Geni means you to put a birth name in that field is just plain wrong: they do NOT. Eventually, then, this new user will produce records that have to be merged with the big tree, and two things will happen: since the newcomer's records will have been guided into doing things The Wrong Way (according to the likes of Remi), actually identifying the merge candidates will be harder, and when you've identified matching individuals, the newcomer's data is going to have to be changed! This will lead to the there being a stylistic split: at some point, wherever the "historical" tree starts, records will be stored with one type of data in the "last name" field, and at some date the records will change style. So even more cleanup is then required.

And the biggest irony is that there is NO REASON for that work or this fuss. Nothing that Remi, Bjorn, or anyone else has stated as a "justification" for their ideals is anything of the sort. All they can justify is that the birth name should go in the field intended for the purpose, i.e. the "Maiden name".

Some have even argued at ridiculous length that this issues is about some kind of US or English biased practice. This is nonsense. A significant majority of the world's population currently and throughout history HAVE employed customs where names changed at marriage -- very often not according to the English style: the Spanish, Chinese and Japanese styles are different, but it's still a change!

So, cutting to the chase: Remi's "genealogists must do it this way" is utterly bogus and without a shred of support in the real world, because what he is talking about is explicitly supported by Geni using the "Maiden name" and the display option. He'll no doubt yell and scream, but at the end of the day if Geni simply changed the text on the screen to read "Birth name" instead of "Maiden name", you'd all see quite how feeble his argument really is.

Reg,

I welcome your corrections in geography and am sort of thrilled to have a cartographer on the case. I look forward to the day we can get a little database going that is more historically accurate than the current one, and hope you'll be able to help in that Project, when we get it going.

Malc.,

Very well said. I think you've teased it out: one little development change by Geni!

Re-name the "maiden name" field to "birth name" and everyone should be satisfied if they set their "display preferences" accordingly.

Do I have it right? That sounds a whole lot more doable in faster time!

Best
Erica

Malcolm,
the problem is that people put in "married name", that never existed in the last name field.
That's makes it very difficult, when judging merges or finding the ancesters for women in early days Europe.
But what the heck, people cannot differ Sachen from Schwaben, so why bother?

Knut,

While that problem is real, the "solution" does nothing for it. People assume childrens birth names are based on the father's, which is an equal assumption.

[ If we were to apply the same "solution" to that problem, you couldn't fill in the birth name either! ]

Further, for those who are interested in BIOGRAPHY more than (or as well as) PEDIGREE, it's much the same thing to deny them the ability to place the "name best known by" in the prominent fields.

There are a LOT of data items that are based on assumptions: e.g. in many of my Scottish ancestors the only fixed, documented dates I have are those of baptism. It is usually reasonable for me to infer that the year of birth is the same as that of the baptism (at least except for dates in January), but that is a _cultural_ inference based on the practice of 15th and 16th century Scots. If we were to apply your logic uniformly, I should omit ALL birth data, which makes everything harder to deal with since that is a prime disambiguator.

Look, if all you want are pedigrees, then I doubt there would be much disagreement, but Geni is for much more than that, and biography requires the names you want to conceal. Specifically, my grandmother's grandmother was born "Rosalind Stanley", but from a biographical standpoint that's the least interesting name of the three that she was known as: "Rosalind Howard" and "Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle" being rather more useful (and, as a matter of fact, my grandmother assured me that to have referred to her by her maiden name would have been insulting to her -- denying her the status she was due as the wife of an earl and a Howard.

By the way, the other "oops" with your scheme is that it presumes that a last name exists. This is a false assumption! See http://www.heraldica.org/topics/britain/prince_highness_docs.htm#18... which clearly shows that Princess Sophia Mathilda (of Gloucester) had no last name at birth, and if you or anyone else tries to pretend she had, you'd be guilty of the same offense that you're using to justify OMITTING valid last names on (e.g.) my great-great-grandmother!

Malcolm,
I thought the purpose of geni was:
1. Build a tree, as reliable as possible
2. Add biography, pictures etc.

Material in the main profile should help building the tree.
Biography we put in about me, pictures have their place etc.

As long as I was building my tree on my own I did not care of standards at all, since I did not have to merge with anyone.
In my tree I have women with heir married name in the last name field and maiden name in the maiden name field.
In my wife’s family the man and women had their fathers name as last name as their only name ( up to the end of 1800) – no problem at all.

But we now are many 1000 people that should share up 50-100 000 profiles it is no use if we all enter names in different ways. The only way to be able to communicate is to use the going standard. I guess there are always people that do not fit into the standard, but if we can get the 99 % of the shared profiles the same we can at least continue to build the tree.
Today that is not possible because of the mess of the tree.

Knut, there's no disagreement about the principle, so I'm baffled as to why you think "builing a tree, as reliable as possible" is helped by omitting valid data?

You really can't have it both ways: either stuffing titles into suffix fields is justifiable on the basis that it helps identify the individual, in which case using the other "last name" field _in addition to_ to birth name is justifiable for the exact same reason, OR if you stand by your claim that using non-birth names is somehow inaccurate then you have to argue against titlles anywhere.

Consistency is important. But let's start with consistency of PRINCIPLE before going off as half-cocked as this scheme is!

Malc.,

Lady Katherine Howard, Countess of Nottingham is our common ancestor. Please take a look at the profile and make sure you are in agreement with the way her names display. I think you will be and it was intuitive for this American to do so.

I would also love to build out her biography and source data if you are interested in working on that. I would love to know more about her, her family and her times.

Maiden Name field for Men

Some time ago it was announced that the Maiden Name field cound be accessed and completed even if the subject was a man.
This was to enter a first family name if the subject had subsequently changed his name or was known by a different family name.
This has led to quite a number of cases where a man has been given a maiden name the same as his family name.
Who can this be corrected?

Randolph, I don't want that to be "corrected". It keeps erroneous information from being displayed after a bad merge, or even a merge where the name is spelled or formatted differently. It's much cleaner to duplicate the man's surname in the maiden name field when that field doesn't need to be used for other information.

Reg, I responded likewise in another thread (twice). You seem to have posted this same post in at least three threads.

Erica, shouldn't Catherine have "First Countess of Nottingham" in the suffix field? It would display better and a lot of users will not look at the about section to find that fact.

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

Please, Please, Please try to follow these naming conventions.

Heather knows to take over any MP from me in the Tudor era. Go for it.

I'd like to see a pop up for naming conventions in tree or profile view, so everyone can access the info when it is needed and they don't have to go searching for the wiki link. I don't always get it right, because I am too caught up in dealing with all the fixing and merging, so tracking down the info, just isn't going to happen..my multitasking skills are NOT what they used to be : (
Also agree that the maiden name should be visible for males, so they don't get sex change permanently by mistake.

I would need to see maiden name relabeled. Otherwise I need to translate from English into an unknown language everytime I see it.

LOL it's a never-ending story. We will always have someone who puts Queen or Captain in the first name field and "of the Isles" as a last name.

"Prefix" field would help.

Agree with Erica

I agree that it's a pain. And it's complicated!
I cannot tell you how many times someone has changed a Master Profile to have "Sir" or "Lady" in the first name field.....

Several of these changes have been recommended on the new Feature Requests page of the new Geni help site at http://geni.zendesk.com/forums/337266-feature-requests. You can go there and add your "Me Too" vote and add comments.