Naming Conventions for the Historical Tree on Geni

We really are so close to agreement! Surely we can reconcile together our last points and agree to a "naming convention for the historical tree on Geni" as a "best practice" for our millions of users globally?

Ultimately we should simplify the debate down into a FAQ for new users and that was part of the original intent of the Geni Wiki, I believe. We are trying to guide people and help them. But right now they would be confused, upset by tone, intimidated by difficulties, scared to make a mistake and face the Wrath of the Data Entry Police, and just ... walk away and go use some other, friendlier, kinder and easier application.

Is that what anyone wants? It's not effective teaching. It's not effective team building. I would leave the school, go where they smile more. And then you (or people more interested in American and English history, anyway) lose my contribution to the bits (bytes) of information to add to the collaborative knowledge accumulated through this great adventure of building a single, accurate as possible, Shared Family Tree. I mean, the Library at Alexandria should have been so lucky!

Don't take away my library card, please, through "an international genealogical standard" that simply won't work for me to trace my family history and help others connect their missing pieces.

There is not a chance in the world that Mr. Molloy and I or Mr. Angel and I would find our connections if the ladies in our ancestry were delineated by maiden name only. Or. Mr. Shmuel Kam either, as his name relates to Cohens, and I have Cohens (by marriage) in *my* tree.

One of the wonderful tools in Geni is the "path between" tool (the pushpin). I just "pinged" a collaborators path and found our common ancestor in 15th century England. That path showed -> her mother -> her husband -> his father. Without the use of both maiden and married names entered into the geni application, that would never happen, and neither of us would have a chance to learn that we share a Standish ancestor .... who is also, I presume, an ancestor of Myles Standish, "Mayflower" Passenger. (Today's "Notable" on my family tree discovery.)

Now I'm not a fan wanker but it is extremely exciting to discover that you're related to historical figures. It makes history come alive. It helps my mind come alive!

So here's what we have so far as points of agreement:

- We respect the language and historical period
- We work with the current software design and capabilities

Agreed?

Mimi,

Yes, we need to boilerplate / template / make a video! for users so they easily understand how to enter data appropriately depending on where and when their ancestor lived.

Ben,

I asked Reg, who is English / Welsh, the "when did married names come into use in England?" question, he didn't answer. My general impression from thepeerage.com site is also 17th Century.

Was it a top down from nobility meme? Was there a change in English Laws, Common Law or other? A change in the ways clergy recorded, tombstones were carved, wills proven in court?

Was this an Elizabeth l or a Stewart era "innovation" or a slow growth in convention?

I smell a Pirate in the picture ...

I really think all of this controversy over "maiden"/birth names versus married names is a programming issue that could be very easily overcome. It's just a matter of creating and labelling the data entry fields more accurately (so that we have a clear "birth name" for everyone, male or female, and then having the software have the capability of generating a possible "married name" for searches, etc. There should also be a field for the name people were known by, but the argument over having to decide *between" these choices is really unnecessary. The base name is the birth name, then peoples' names change over time because of marriage, titles, epithets, earned degrees, and so on. Geni could easily include in searches different combinations of these--for example, if Mary Smith (birth name) married men with the surnames of (1) Lynch, (2) Randolph and (3) Stewart. There's no use arguing over which name to list for her. She should be listed as birth name Mary Smith, and indexed and searchable as Mary Smith, Mary Lynch, Mary Randolph and Mary Stewart. Even if she never took those married names (as I have been married twice but have always used my "maiden" name). This solves all those other cultural problems as well. Display name can be whatever name was culturally the most appropriate.

Yes, it's a database solution and I have no doubt geni will evolve correctly in future enhancements.

The real question on the table is "how do we enter the data the first time / clean up the existing data." I think the general point of agreement with the original posting by Anne Marit has been reached, and the argument is with the American way of doing American ancestor 17th-20th century data entry.

I will now be bitter and say I don't quite understand why Americans seem to have little say on the issue. I don't question other country, language conventions, and historical periods, and bend over backwards and twistwise to learn the best practices for there. Why is there an argument for the U.S. ?

It's actually a bit shocking to me. Guess I'm naive.

Hi Remi:

Yes, you are quite correct on the Spanish and Portuguese convention for the use of maternal and paternal "apellidos" that don't really change from birth. I'm intimately aware of this, since I have to fill in forms and such here in Chile (and I'd take this moment to say my thanks to God for the so-far safe extraction of the miners in the northern part of the country... if I'm slow in response, it's because the TV is on). My last name, if I were born here, would be "Angel y Jackson".

But again, that reflects the naming convention in this area of the world, and not northern Europe. In England, Russia, former Soviet countries, non-Latin North America, Australia, the Philippines, Poland (these are the places that I know), the convention is that women change their name at marriage. It's not a universally followed convention either, as you still have women who elect to retain their last names after saying "I do". You have women that elect to combine their husband's name with their birth name. However they elect, that is how they are known. And if your purpose is to convey the history of your family (and why else would you be interested in genealogy?), then in my view you should be conveying how your family members were known.

Anyway, Remi, the Spanish names are a wonderful illustration of why a strictly-followed universal standard doesn't work. Thanks for presenting that.

Erica, I remember when I ran across the Welsh names for the first time that they seemed to stop being "patronymic" (going Joe ap Bob, or Jill verch Fred) around the time that the first Ellis in my family left Wales - I believe sometime in the 1600s (I'd have to look up when again). I feel fairly confident that the name "Cadwalader" went from a first name to a family name around that time.

It would be good to track down what the cause was. We can all join Remi at that point and call the person who decreed this a troublemaker. :) But it's northern European reality, and if we are telling the story correctly, in my view, it has to be conformed to.

To me, naming standards, where they are used, should be tools to convey reality, not tools to change reality.

Bjørn P. Brox,

Your comment is particularly not helpful, on the unarguable grounds that we all KNOW that the Wiki is wrong (titles are not suffixes, and if the suffix was the place for titles then it would be called something like, oh, "title"!).

We also all know that there are a huge number of profiles that will not conform to that he convention for various reasons, some good, some less so.

The issue I'm having is with people who are trying to dictate and stifle discussion. We know the wiki is imperfect. We know the convention is flawed. Yet you and Shmuel are acting, as Knut observed, like dictators.

I suggest you accept that merely an unidentified bunch of people having a "long discussion" is no guarantee of perfection!

To put it another way, as I pointed out earlier, you should understand that argumentum ad populum is one of the classic fallacies.

Erica,

You are absolutely correct when you say that there seems to be a fairly broad consensus on a lot of things, and most of them would seem to be the critical points.

The current issue is how to handle the remaining rough edges. My issue of titles, Remi's of birth names (and titles) are all really areas where a technical solution is really required (as Ben Angel and Pam Wilson have both observed).

My problem is that there are those, like Shmuel Aharon Kam and Bjørn P. Brox, who have taken a position that some random secret cabal have made The Rules and no-one may touch the Sacred Text!

At 24 pages (as of now, just in this thread) it's clear that there are soundly-based disagreements with the Sacred Text.

Now, the way technical and government standards are developed is as follows:

1. You agree what you can agree on.
2. When you can't agree, you try to agree on some principles and alternatives.
3. You then try to agree guidance to users as to how to pick an alternative.

There are always those who want a "tighter" standard -- I've seen these people in technical and social "rule making" groups across the US, UK and Europe. They all assert, without justification, that a "looser" standard weakens the thing. They all miss the point that a too-tight one will be ignored.

So the question that Messrs Kam and Brox and their like need to answer is this: which is more important, a policy that embraces the reality of the situation or a policy that permits no dissent?

By the way, I agree with your point about the American Way! Last I checked, Los Angeles (where Geni is based) is in California! Plus, I agree with you about the "how are you connected" thing: turns out my 14th cousin twice removed is the leader of the free world!

Well, I'd rather leave the politics out of it, all due respect given to your cousin. :) I wasn't even around for the previous discussions, but very much appreciate the documentation and guidelines that evolved from it. I would have been at a loss on the Welsh naming conventions for instance and gotten Reg in an uproar. Now he can't point any naggy fingers at me LOL.

Where do you see we stand now, using your three points?

1. What are our points of agreement?
2. What are our points of disagreement? What are the principles and alternatives we agree on?
3. What guidance principles for users as to how to pick an alternative are we coming to?

Hi Malcolm:

It's probably best not to get too fired up about "cabals". This is just a top-down solution mistakenly applied to a bottom-up problem. They aren't the first ones to make this mistake either - most ISO consultants worth their salt will warn a company's management when they try to do the same without employee buy-in. And that's in a situation where the bottom people are being paid "to do what they are told."

Their obvious concern is reinventing the wheel, which is something no one likes to do. But in a collaboration setting where the personalities change (because of expansion or reductions), reinventing wheels is a problem that comes with the territory.

The proposal for a technical solution is out there. I'd further propose that until the decision is made to act on it that we all just do what we think is right, and treat the "naming convention" as a proposal to accept or reject. This is a learning environment for all of us, for you, for me, and even for Shmuel and Bjørn.

Malcolm,
again we ARE having a discussion, and while I agree with Ben that Geni DOES need to give a proper TECHNICAL solution, the outlined system is for what we have NOW.

As to the "unidentified bunch of people", these were the most active "power-mergers" at the time. You might be surprised to see the breakdown of who's doing what percentage of the work on Geni.

Presently, the official statistics, out of Noah Tutak's mouth are ~120,000 merges a week. 15% of those were completed by the 40+ Curators alone. If you expanded that to the 100 most active users, they would likely cover about ~40%, 200 users probably cover 70%....

So the Geni community (like Wikipedia BTW) is not a dictatorship, more of a meritocracy, with Geni Co. as the final arbitrator. So yes, the few "unknowns" DO have much stronger impact. BTW when Geni did announce the first Curators, they were all well-known (some with 2000+ Collaborators) and were well received. "Classic fallacies" or not, what have you done for the community?

Malcolm,
pretty much everything past page 6, was written in the last MONTH alone (out of 10), by the 4 people who object (Knut, Reg, Remi and you), and the many replies to you... So that's no argument really.

The question of Maiden name v Married name still seems to be a problem.

I am quite sure that most of us do in fact use a genealogical database as our prime point of reference and to store our family information –

If you do not – why?

I would like to point out that of the genealogical databases I have seen and used, ALL use the birth family name for all females and do not change the display name once they are married.

Why should you using Gene be different?

In Scotland, until the 20th century, married women kept their maiden names

In Wales the wife of a man with a tradition al Welsh family name, kept her Family name

And found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_and_maiden_names#English-speak...

Genealogy

Most genealogists prefer to refer to a mother by her maiden name when they are constructing a pedigree, whether in chart form such as a family tree or in some written form. This convention is used because it is a concise way of presenting genealogical information. Thus they would write (or show on a pedigree chart) a child as e.g. the son of John Smith and Mary Brown.

Reg, which databases are you referring to?

I have heard this claim made, especially by Remi, multiple times, but I have not been able to verify it myself. I'm anxious to learn. (Due to me being a Linux freak, the only one I can testify to is Gramps - they have a selection "Birth name", "Married name" and "AKA" that you have to pick when you enter a name field).

Hi Reg:

I'll have to do more research into the name thing, it seems. Hadn't heard of the Scottish one before. As to Wales, I think they got most of the names in the 17th century. Sure, you had hold-outs. I'd regard them in the same category as the women who elect to retain their maiden name when married. (It's what they were known by, so that's their name....)

But I do appreciate the Wikipedia link... will look that one over.

I use "Family Tree Maker" as my database.

Reg,

Again, you made my point.

It's a reporting and display issue, not a data entry issue.

Of course a traditional pedigree chart shows the maiden name only. It is designed to show the parallel lines of descent.

But the database of information from which the chart is drawn also, of course, has both maiden and married names entered. That db was, pre-computer, the genealogists notes and files. They couldn't work unless they had all data entered into that database.

And when they wrote the narrative in the genealogy books published in England and the United States, the wife was referred to by her MARRIED name. Just googlebook any random British name and you'll see exactly what I mean, or I'll post back a sample paragraph at some point, after I do some geni - work to benefit, you know, the users.

Excellent find, Reg, on the Wikipedia article.

If you want a naming convention, the article you referred to would be a good source to work from...

Did notice the lack of citation on the Genealogy assertion, but I would suspect it true that a significant number of genealogists prefer going from maiden names (particularly given Remi's insistence on it). But it also states preference, rather than standard. Given that, I'd hope for a citation on this assertion, to review to what degree (preference, loose standard, strict standard) the "international genealogical community" regards their need for using maiden names.

I suppose my interest would be academic, though. I know that if I were commissioning a genealogist, I wouldn't want a "maiden name" chart. I'd want to know my ancestors by what name they went by (whether married name, maiden name, maternal and paternal apellido, etc.). If the genealogist refused to package it like that for me because of some supposed standard, I'd go to another genealogist. (For that reason, because I don't think I would be alone in that, I would suspect that "preference" is a more accurate description.)

I am a long-time member of th Society of Geneoogist in London and I can say that any family tree published by the Society will show the wife with the birth name – only.

Then I'd probably not go to the Society for a chart... maybe I'd go to a member of the Society that met my needs, but not the Society itself.

Gotta think target audience... any writer could tell you that.

Thus thow endeth with nothing but works of fiction

Harald, a genealogical database, is the genealogical program you use to keep your ancestry and pedigree on. Everyone that are interested in genealogy and want to keep a record of their family, should have a genealogical program on their own private computer. Which one you choose is up to you, but only using Geni, or any other online genealogical program, is stupidity. You should always have a genealogical program on your own private computer that you can use offline. The online programs should really only be backups.

Harald, about the genealogical standards on how to write your genealogical data in your database, you can read the books "Våre Røtter" (Our Roots), 3. edition, page 196 about names and page 9 in the book ""Slektsgransking med dataveiledning" (Genealogy with computer guidance). Both are books in norwegian that helps a person to get their genealogy started, and they both start at the beginners level.
The only genealogical programs I know about for Linux is GRAMPS and LifeLines. I do not know any of them, but GRAMPS are probably the most known one.

Erica: I don't understand your paragraph "There is not a chance in the world that Mr. Molloy and I or Mr. Angel and I would find our connections if the ladies in our ancestry were delineated by maiden name only. Or. Mr. Shmuel Kam either, as his name relates to Cohens, and I have Cohens (by marriage) in *my* tree" What is the problem in finding the connections because the ladies are delineated by maiden names only? In my genealog,y for almost 30 years, I have never had a problem finding a womans ancestry or descendants though I have used her birth name as main name in my database. Her other "names" are ofcourse written in the alternate name fields in my personal database, and if her name as married is changed to that of her husband, that name is shown in her husbands last name. On the other hand, if I only know a woman by her married name, I will have a big problem finding her ancestry. If Ann Olsdaughter Smith is married to John Paulson Smith and I only know Ann's name after her marriage with John, the only thing I know about her ancestry is that her fathers name was Ole, that is not much to work with. The paths on Geni is a lot more readable to me when persons are written with their birth names. Then, when the path goes to the next person in his/her path, I can see at ones wether the path goes via her ancestry or via his/her marriage, just by looking at the names. Agreed with your last paragraph.

Pam, I agree with you completely. In my private program there are one main name andup to 19 choices of alternate names, with unlimited use of all alternates.

The first time you enter a persons name, you should use the name in the source you find the person, if you later in time find the same person in an earlier source, and he/she has a different name, you should change the name to that one, and this goes on until you find the name he/she is born/baptized with. This is the common way of writing names in a genealogical record, at least in the western hemisphere. Far and middle east I don't have much knowledge about.

Ben, in your paragraph starting with "But again, that reflects the naming convention in this area of the world, and not northern Europe." Which timeperiod(s) are you talking about? I hope you're not talking about the last 100 years or so, if so, what about the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century? And how do you know by which name your familymembers were known in these timeperiods, what does the sources say?

Malcolm, I do not agree with the american way. I don't live in the US (allthough I have for a couple of years) and Geni is international, which also means that Geni should be setup as an international platform. I will also leave the politics out of this discussion, but I have my thoughts about America, land of the free, (hmmpphh!!!) :-)

Thanks, Reg, it's good to be backed up by a genealogist in an english speaking part of the world. Maybe some will get their eyes up about how we wright persons names in our genealogical databases, even in the english-speaking part of the world. :-) And ofcourse we should have our own private genealogical database on our own private computer, and it should also be our prime database. Geni is absolutely secondary to my own private database.

Harald, I'm not quiet sure what you're talking about when you're saying databases, but it looks like you mean genealogical dataprograms. In my program, Brother's Keeper, I have one main name field, and the alternate fields for names are: Also known as, Nickname, Short name (for reports), Adopted name, Hebrew name, Census name, Married name, German name, Current name, Soldier name, Formerly known as, Religious name, Called, Indigenous name and Other name.I can choose as many of these alternate names as I want, as many times as I want. Ofcourse my program is both in norwegian and english (and lots of other languages), and I'm free to choose which language I want.

Ben, I linked to the wiki-page about the scots 6. oct. 2010 03.29 page 15.

Erica, ofcourse it's a data entry issue. Every profile, or person in a database, has a main name, that name should be the birth name as that is the genealogical standard. Name after marriage is called "Married name" in my genealogical programand it is an alternate name, thus secondary. And ofcourse precomputer genalogists had both maiden and married name in their records, maiden name, or name at birth as I call it, as the main name and the married name usually shown in the last name of their husband. I would like to see links to english/american genealogical books where the women are written with their names after married, please show me examples, Erica.

Ben, you are the exception that proves the rule, as the saying goes in Norway. And I agree with Reg.

Remi,

When I have the time I will show you examples of American and English published genealogy books -- although I'm sure you know how to use googlebooks yourself? Try Martha Washington. I have no clue what her maiden name was.

There is no disagreement that formal pedigree charts are *drawn* (they are diagrams) in parallel lines of descent. There is no disagreement that the database should have as many names as possible.

We are simply currently limited by the available data entry, database, display and reporting fields available.

Unlike Scandinavia, the 16th-20th centuries in the US, women used married names. Surely this is not a point of argument? It's history (and also current practice). I repeat: you may have no problem tracing women's ancestry through their birth name only. No American woman can be done that way, it is an impossible task. So why do you insist on imposing that impossibility on what is, bottom line, an application display preference for you, about ancestry that is not even relevant to you?

Please feel free to validate my personal experience with that of the professional societies here. You could start with NEHGS, very well respected, and their "Ask the Genealogist" page.

http://www.americanancestors.org/home.html

Erica, my only experience with american genealogy has to do with americans with norwegian ancestors.

But as an example, I can use James Arness, or Matt Dillon as he was known in Gunsmoke. He is at the moment married to Janet Surtees, she is using her own last name. He was earlier in life married to Virginia Chapman and they have 2 children together who both use the lastname Arness, but Virginia is never known by the name Arness. James brother, Peter used the name Graves which is a last name of one of his female ancestors. He married Joan Endress, always only known by that name.

James and Peter's father Rolf Cirkler Aurness got married to Ruth Eleanor Duesler, I would not have found her ancestry if the sources I have used had her name written as Ruth Eleanor Aurness.

Rolfs parents were Peter Andreas Olsen Aursnes and Ida M. Cirkler. (I haven't found what the M stands for yet). Ida was a widow of Carl Hille when she married Peter. If I my sources had only written Ida with the name Aursnes or Hille, it would be hard for me to find out who her parents were. So, Erica, maybe women in the US used their married names on a daily bases, but it does not help my genealogy. I'm not arguing what they used when they were living, I'm arguing how they should be written on Geni and any other genealogical database, and what their main name in these databases should be. So I do not have any problems tracing these people living in the US in the 20th and late 19th century through the sources, because some of the sources I used had their name at birth written down. It's not an impossible task for me, neither should it be for anybody else as long as you know which sources to use. Thats why I insist, and even Reg in England states that he is used to write names like this there. Why do you insist on writing names that even english speaking genealogists says is the usual way to write names in a genealogical database? I put it to you, that you, like Ben, is wrong when you insist on using names after marriage as a persons main name in a genealogical database. Even in America, or is America doing it it's own way?

Hi Remi:

Will try to respond in order.

I probably should have better defined "this area of the world." I'm in Chile. This area of the world is Latin-America, which uses the naming convention that requires both the mother and father's (paternal portion of) last name, the name not changing throughout life. And it's a convention they apparently held since the 1500s, as I'm running into "Father y Mother" names clear back to the start of Valparaiso's European-oriented history (which is about the 1560s)

As to my family's own history, I'm running into married names as far back as the late 1600s. Honour Clayton Brown comes to mind (Pennsylvania/Maryland Quaker). And the de La Chaumette/Delashmutts seemed to be using married names back around their arrival in North America, as did Gedeon Le Plante Marlet's wife, who started life as a Martijn (again, late 1600s). Can't vouch for the very early Jacksons, because none of their wives names survived to today, sadly. But as I said, the first Ellises shifted to a stable English last name around, again, the late 1600s, again, when they crossed to North America (though I don't remember seeing reliable sources on married name for that lineage... perhaps I will, one way or another, when I go back to verify data in that line).

The Thomas Rogers Society shows married name usage into the late 1600s as well.

As to "The American Way," it's the way that probably should be used for Americans (referring of course to the people in the United States of America... they get kind of testy here in Chile when you use "American" casually to refer to people of that country). I wouldn't advocate "the American Way" for Spain, or Arabia, or Japan (I know that sometimes people of the United States are quite guilty of copying the British in imposing their "way" on other countries - Philippine names according to the page that Reg provided are a perfect example of that). But I would advocate using local "ways" where and when they apply, and that would include within the United States.

(I'm sure you meant "write person's names in our genealogical databases." I'd criticize, but my Norwegian is non-existent... I do concur on keeping your data backed up, particularly if you are making a livelihood from it. And Brother's Keeper sounds interesting... hopefully the data entry makes some kind of sense... having data entry for different languages and display for different cultures - something user friendly - would be something I'd hope would be seen on Geni someday.)

Sorry about not finding the Scot link a week ago. Was probably busy putting together historical timelines or otherwise adding to the tree.

Finally Remi, the last line I didn't quite follow, referring to me being the exception that proves the rule. We have that saying in English as well, so it's not a foreign concept, but I think your point was cut short. It was of course at the end of a long reply, so I can understand how you could end up not fully explaining your idea. But I'd ask that you clarify how I'm an exception to the rule.

And lastly, Reg, target audience is something seen in more than just fiction. It also applies to journalism and technical writing. (Say what you want about journalism, but tech writing had better be non-fiction.) Just because your end user doesn't appreciate genealogical standards using maiden name only does not make their requested family tree a fiction. Granted, it does add a step to a genealogist's work, but without that "alternate name" the work is incomplete. And incomplete work smacks closer to "fiction," at least in my eyes.

Thank you Remi and Reg - this is all more concrete for me now!

I guess that I'll just have to resign myself to the idea that my grandchildren will see me listed on the genealogical databases as "Harald Tveit"....

(Sorry for this norwegian answer, but this is basicly for Harald to read.)

Hei Harald Tveit, koselig å bli kjent med deg! :-)

Så klart dine etterkommere vil se ditt hovednavn i en slektsforskningsdatabase som Harald Tveit, det er jo det navnet du er døpt og levde med i din barne- og ungdsomstid, forutsatt at dine foreldre ikke tok navnet Alvestrand i din tidlige barndom. Jeg vet ikke når Alvestrand ble tatt opp av deg eller noen andre i din familie, men i min private database, så ville det blitt registrert med dato og det hele under en av fanene "Formelt kjent som", "Også kjent som", "Bruker navn" eller "Annet navn". Så opplysningene ville ikke forsvunnet, det ville bare ikke vært dit hovednavn i databasen, fordi du ikke er døpt/født med det navnet. Verre er det ikke. Så dine etterkommere vil se og kunne søke etter alle navn du noensinne har brukt og vært kjent som, så lenge de er registret i databasen. Dessverre er ikke Geni god nok på dette ennå, men jeg hater dobbeltarbeid, derfor registrerer jeg alltid personene i databasene mine med navnet de får ved sin fødsel/dåp.

Ben, I think we agree on almost everything except that you want a profile to show the name a person was mostly known by, and I want a profile to show the name a person is born with. Will we agree on this point? I think not. Luckily for me, your opinion usually fall into the minority when it comes to genealogy, so it really isn't a big problem for me.

I've had this discussion a few times here in Norway, too, with the same arguments, and those feeling tha same way you and Erica does, are in the minority over here too. But after a while, those that are opposed se the light too.

That is also why I wrote that saying about exception and rule. There will always be a few people that oppose the majority and common standards. In this case that is you and Erica. I can live with that, as I've done before, and it will not be a problem for me, but please don't try to tell other upcoming genealogists your way of writing names, because it's not the way we genealogists like to do it, and therefore you will be teaching them the wrong way of doing it.