Naming Conventions for the Historical Tree on Geni

Erica, I'm working principally on the Finnie, Boyd, Lumley & McEwen families at ths stage. The Lumleys in particular, are tied in with the Plantagenets. I must add that I only include the titles in the "display" names, not in the actual fields on the form. Is it okay to keep doing this, Erica?

Erica Howton, my legal birth certificate says Peter Louis Corbasson III. Although it might differ from country to country.

@Reg--we curators are designating Master Profiles but at the moment they are almost all still works in progress--and have much cleanup to do, as you note. Just designating the ones that will receive the clean-up attention (and into which other duplicates should be merged) is the first step. So please bear with us--this is not an overnight process, by any means.

Every time there is a merge, for example, if the "middle name" field is blank and one of the profiles being merged has something (like the damnable "De") in the middle name field, then Geni automatically fills in that empty field. That's one reason why we get all these names like John De de Surname! and other garbled names. If someone is merging from the Merge Center queue, after approving a merge it moves you right to the next merge and does not take you to the Edit Profile to clean up the name. So, many of the names get mangled that way. Hopefully someone will come along behind and clean them up, or the merger will get back to them.

But as Erica noted, this is a team effort, so we curators depend on all of you to help in what seems (some days) like a Herculean project!

Thanks for all your good work. All of you! We're making headway :^) Just look back and see how far we've come.

Private User

I've actually just been working with some of your Boyd profiles, and find them remarkably easy to read and follow, even in the teeny tiny type of the "conflict resolution wizard." So you are definitely doing it right for me!

Just goes to show how useful the "display name" option really can be.

Peter Louis Corbasson, III

Right after I wrote that I realized I was making an assumption again! And you know what they say about ass- ....

Fabulous, Erica........thank you!! :))

Erica,

different countries probably have different rules/laws about middle names. And I'm basically only knowledgeable about Norway in this regard. Norway did not have a naming law before 1923. So legally there was no first name, middle name, last name at all before 1923. For people born before 1923 in Norway I use all their names before their last name as first name/christian name, in the middle name field I write their patronymicon. After 1923 I write it as the law says. By doing it like this I usually don't need to use the Display name field at all.

The word "register" is in my sentence used as the word "writing". When registering some data in a field in a database, you write it in the field. Excuse me if this made some confusion, but english is not my main language.

So here is how I do it:

First Name - all the names before last name. Baptized names.
Middle Name - patronymicon (before 1923 for identificational purposes, after 1923 as by the law, only applies to Norway, I do not know how this is regulated in other countries)
Last Name - last name at birth
Maiden Name - nor used at all, every person should be registered (written as) in the database with their last names at birth, just as I see you are doing it with your close relatives, Erica.
Suffix for Sr., Jr. etc.
Display name (same as yours, Erica)

I don't look at what it says in the nickname field much, but the nicknames should ofcourse only be names used by the person in his/her life.

So our difference between the US and Norway really comes down to this:

Middle Name - We don't have patronymicons. We have middle names.
Last Name - The LEGAL name. In the US, women almost always (even today it's probably 80%) *change* their birth name to match their husband. Therefore that is the name to be used in Geni. (Let's use the word LEGAL to avoid the "register" confusion.)
Maiden Name - Used for WOMEN as their birth name. Now for immigrants who changed their name at emigration or after, it's probably the field to use for now, although that's really a workaround.
Suffix for Sr., Jr., etc.; whether a LEGAL name or not. :) Titles such as Dr. or Rev. with reluctance.
Display Name - Whatever makes the most sense for the "little people" to easily find, with a caveat -- don't go on forever!

Are we getting close? :) :)

Hmm I forgot about the baptism name. I have a Hebrew name I do not use and is not LEGAL so I don't put it in. I have worked with baptism names for my German ancestors, and they frequently precede the "used" first name, so I put them in the first name field as you do. But I may not know with some that it is a a baptism name and use the middle name field. I hope they forgive me. :)

Remi, I must correct you a bit: I recommend to fill in the Maiden Name field as well.

The reason is the "Maiden name only" display option, but also to ensure that the birth name does not get wiped out during a merge if the merger insist on using a married name.

If both last name and maiden name is identical, one of them will automatically be hidden.

When it comes to married name for those who insist on using it the rule is quite simple: Do not fabricate any facts based on laws or traditions.

If you don't have any documentation that a mother was married to the father and/or used the husbands name don't assume she did.

This rule does also apply to placeholder profiles which makes merging easier. Only apply the facts you know. If you don't have any fact that there was a marriage do not use Mrs., wife of and so on, - simply use ? or NN (latin for Nomen Nescio) and correct gender.

If you have facts like there was more than one unknown spouse you can reflect that fact as "mother of", "first wife" and so on to avoid bad merges. Just remember that this is an international site and make sure that people understand that it is a placeholder profile. - It took some time before I understood that the Russian, Portuguese, and French word for Unknown was Unknown and not a real name.

Unless you have some facts to add you should not use placeholder profiles at all, but most of us agree is that it at the moment makes merging of a line much easier.

Ok, we can use the word Legal. But, Erica, you're making assumptions again.

Because you chose the word "legal", we have to know the laws of every country when it comes to names. When did the first law concerning names become legal in the USA? And what does it say about first/christian names, middle names, last names and maiden names. How many changes has this law had since it first became legal? And what are the changes?

You say "In the US, women almost always (even today it's probably 80%) *change* their birth name to match their husband." Since when? And what about before that time where there was a law regulating names?

How about Canada, England, France, Germany, the german states before it became Germany, and the list goes on. What is their legal system when it comes to names?

Then, Bjørn, the effort should be made to change the option in Geni, because at the moment it's obviously one of the reasons that facts in Geni are wrong compared to real life at the time the person lived. And putting a maiden name in the maiden name field will make a lot of extra work later on to fix the problem, I don't like to do unneccesary work and this is exactly that.

I used the word "recommend", - it is convenient to have the maiden name filled in of several reasons, but you don't have to feel the pressure to do that (unless you make the last name empty).

And to the discussion with Erica I will just pinpoint again that whatever statistics, traditions, legal provisions from when or whatever reasons you claim as a reason to use a married name: None of them is correct if you have to fabricate a fact like a married name.

You quote Remi in an earlier discussion: You should not assume, you should know.

Bjorn,

Sometime I will find a historical source for you. But for me, it's like knowing that the place I live is called New York, NY. I don't need to look up the date when the legal name change was from New Amsterdam. :)

Just to remind all of you you can not use "United Kingdom" before 1707 - I looked it up.

Remi,

I also need to point out the population of the United States vs. the population of a smaller country. I have a somewhat unusual name but I *still* have clones out there. From a practical point of view of keeping data disambiguated, the more detail that can be filled in, the better. That includes the maiden name when known by *somebody / someplace / sometime* and whether a source document is obtainable or not.

I am mostly talking about 17th, 18th, and 19th century America. I am pretty much staying away from the 20th century (except my own direct family) and ironically that is the *best* documented to prove my point - in the United States, women changed their names to match their husbands.

Reg,

I am scrupulous now about using England! ((mutters at annoying autocomplete))

@Erica Isabel Howton

As @Peter Louis Corbasson pointed out, a suffix is as much part of a natal legal name as a middle name (or initial, for those who have an initial but no name, such as the President Harry S Truman).

So your scheme of putting other stuff there (such as professional titles) is fatally flawed. Just don't do it, please!

Look, in all this effort to try to jam stuff where it doesn't belong ("reverend" into a suffix), no-one has turned the topic around and looked at it from the other perspective: what SHOULD go in the "Display Name"?

We know, and agree pretty much across the board, what SHOULD go in the first and last name fields; middle name is a little more controversial because of the patronymic issue, but all that's workable. The use of the suffix is ably demonstrated by Mr. Corbasson. In summary, ALL those fields have obvious and pretty much uncontroversial contents, even if not every individual has entries for every field.

So what SHOULD be in display name?

I think it obvious. But I don't understand the reluctance to use that field for what I assumed (I know, I know) was obvious.

Malc.

Malcolm,

I'm not the one disagreeing with you! I appreciate the clarification that roman numerals can be legal natal names (wasn't thinking on that one).

I have seen really, really long and silly display names, and I'd like to see that avoided, and have them normalized in some fashion according to historical period conventions. Matching Wikipedia entries comes to mind as the easy solution.

Erica,

the population of a country doesn't have anything to do with the naming laws. Todays China has stricter naming laws compared to the US, and the same goes for Norway, but the population in these two countries differ a lot.

I do not agree with you on your maiden name practice and I think you are wrong in doing so. You are talking about America in the 17th - 19th century. Then tell me what was the legal way to write names in the 17th, 18th and 19th century in the USA? I know for a fact, and I also have the sources to back it up, that the immigrants from Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark and Sweden) did not use maiden names in Minnesota, Wyoming and the Dakotas during the middle of the 19th centrury and up to 1900. They did exatly as the were used to in their home country, the wives kept the birth name all their life. They did not change their names to match their husbands.

So, since you are so bombastic sure about your claim that the wives changed their names to match their husbands in the USA in the 17th, 18th and 19th century, please give me references to the laws governing this during this time period. Also, please tell me if you're unable to find any........

Anyone: When did the first law/act come in the USA that governed first, middle and lastnames?

Remi,

Just as a correction to your use of the word "bombastic." That's a fighting word in American English and I don't think that's your intent.

My mission is to clean up the dupes in the database and share my knowledge of Colonial America. I am not making an assertion nor do I need to prove anything to anyone.

I am sharing knowledge based on oh too many years in this place. :)

I have gotten over my snit at being called "bombastic" and of course accept your point about the convention for Scandinavian women carrying on their tradition in the United States after emigration. Nor am I asking you to prove it. It is something you know and I wouldn't mess with a record input by someone who knows (in fact I do my best not to touch the data at all!). I assume there are similar differences in the traditions carried on from other European countries as well, and respect *that* data as input in geni.

In return, please accept that it is something *I know* about emigrants from England to the United States, and the majority of the women born here in the 17th - 20th century. It is sadly far easier to find death records than birth records or marriage records. If you're trying to document your own American ancestry, the *first* way to look is under the husband's name.

Why in the world would you try and make family research harder than it already is?

"Then tell me what was the legal way to write names in the 17th, 18th and 19th century in the USA?"

I am not a lawyer. And in any event many of my ancestors could barely read or write, so it was whatever the government official, if any, chose.

Erica,

My issue here is that you seem to advocating what is, to my mind, "really really long and silly" suffixes as a way of avoiding "really really long and silly" display names.

Can we agree the issue is the "really really long a silly" part, not where it goes?

Can we also agree that putting prefix professional titles in the name suffix field is not only suboptimal for the reason that those things aren't actually "names", but also since it doesn't display appropriately?

"Martin Luther King Jr Rev Dr" is NOT what you'd find in Wikipedia (to use your suggestion), but that is precisely what you'd get if you put his professional titles in the suffix!

We can spend a great deal of time discussing the ideal format for the "display name" (and probably should), but ultimately each case is different -- for any convention that one might suggest, there will be exceptions that would work better if another scheme was used.

What I'm trying to achieve is fundamentally a separation of the biographical information (titles, etc) from the genealogical data. The only way I know of doing is to, well, do it!

Malc.

Malc., I'm agreeing with you! I am just reluctant to edit anyone's else's data. :)

If you ever look at my own profiles ... hmm, ok, I don't have enough professionals in my family ... anyway, I don't use honorifics / titles at all except in display name.

In regard to women:

For me, the issue is both documenting women's names and finding them. This means we HAVE to be able to find them by their user name and connect them to their families. Both birth name and married name need to be searchable, regardless of which side of the pond we are talking about.

Sometimes I use birth name in the last name field, and both birth name and husband's name in the display field.

For nobility:

The critical part is disambiguation. Sometimes in the suffix, sometimes in the middle name, and rarely in the user name.

I may change my habits, but these are my two concerns: disambiguation and finding the women's family.

Can someone please explain the word "disambiguation" for me?

Janet

I am a strong advocate of a wife being listed using only her maiden name.

You may want to search under the married name, but what if the lady in question had four husbands.

To list her with all four married names would not be correct.

She would have started live as “Miss A”, on her first marriage she would become “Mrs B” then “Mrs C” followed by “Mrs D” and finally “Mrs E”.

To me it is more important that she be shown as the daughter of her parents who married four times then being the wife of …

While on the subject and true to the time scale the discussion was set up for ----

Welsh names

Madoc ap Griffith [1190-1235] married Gwyladys verch Ithel [b.1185]

Ap = son off and Verch = daughter of

You cannot call the lady “Gwyladys ap Griffith” as she is not the son of Griffith.

In Wales married woman kept their family name and did not use their husband’s name.

(Edited my last attempt)

Janet Palo-Jackson,

If you're putting titles in various unpredictable places, you would, I feel, be NOT disambiguating, but confusing!

I concur absolutely that the reason for putting titles, etc. in visible places is to disambiguate individuals with otherwise similar or identical names ("disambiguate": to distinguish between two otherwise similar entities, after "ambiguous", something that could have more than one possible meaning).

But the issue of disambiguating searches presupposes that you have a search with a handful of results, and you are wanting to select the "right" one, yes?

Which takes us right back to the display name: that sort of thing is what it's for: to identify which person of a set, all of whom are actually named "Jane Mary Doe", you want.

The fatal flaw of putting titles in names becomes obvious with a few words that could be either a title or a name. I'm think of things like "Dean", "Earl", "Duchess", which are all names AND titles.

So why is not better to disambiguate by using a rule along of lines of: "if something is in a first/middle/last/suffix/maiden name field, it's a name; if it isn't, it may or may not be depending on context"?

Malc.

Thanks for the explanation, Malcolm. :-)

Reg, I completely agree with your point of view.