Naming Conventions for the Historical Tree on Geni

Remi:

I think we can agree to disagree. But I will continue to approach this from an amateur historian's point of view, which I feel is at the very least equally as valid (even if it pays less). And whether my opinion is supported by a minority of "established genealogists" really doesn't matter that much to me, as I feel I am in the majority of your potential consumers. If you want an expansion of the market you are aiming to sell your services to, you need to look at giving people what they are after, namely the people in our family tree as they are known in history.

As to your "school of genealogy," this is a do-it-yourself tree, not a genealogical "Hogwarts". In case you hadn't noticed, pretty much everyone here is interested in how their family is situated in history, not genealogical standards (or if there is an interest, it is far from an overriding one). They may have a passing interest in how the birth name was, primarily as it appears on the birth certificate. But they are also interested in the marriage certificate and the death certificate, and yes, how the name appears on the tombstone. Or how they are recorded on their children's birth certificate.

This is the full package that we consumers are after. Don't believe me? Look at the tree. The majority of the names out there, where there is a difference between birth name and known name, are not using the birth name. It may be referenced in events early in life, but for the most part that's the limit.

But I admit that you do well at being persistent. I admire that. And yes, I agree to disagree. Perhaps someday, as more DIY options come up in this field making it further difficult to sell an incomplete product, it will be you who changes your position. If that turns out to be the case, I'll promise to respect and admire that as well.

I have an ancestor whos birth name was “Mary Shatswell”

She was born in the early (some say in England and some in Massachusetts)

She married four times
1 – William Dale
2 – John Webster
3 - Nicholas Smith
4 - Charles Rundlett

You can find her on Google and she is listed in lots of American family trees, but you will have to search under the name “Mary Shatswell”

I wonder why?

I would guess that your Mary was probably born in England, if she is known by her maiden name. But there are always exceptions to be found to every trend in history (plenty of women today choose to be known by their maiden name - nothing too exciting). I'd still maintain that she should be named by the name she's known; since she was apparently known as Shatswell, that would have to be her name. If she was known by Rundlett, or another name, and she were my ancestor, I'd name her Rundlett.

As to my ancestors, I'm finding them known by their married name. So that's what I name them. If I find one that is known by her maiden name, well, in all honesty, I went with the married name in the first pass (not knowing any better), but I'd change it back to maiden name in second pass (having a better understanding of the history of our ancestors' names). If that's how she's known, that's how she should be named.

Any other test questions?

No other test questions, Ben. You've made your point, even though in my experience it's makes your detective work in finding information about your familymembers a lot harder, but that is your perogative. You can choose to make this as hard or as easy as you like. I still wonder how you know how a person is known, specially when we go a couple and more 100 years back in time.The sources we have are usually only glimpses into a persons life, and we can't tell much about from these glimpses about how a person was known.

But I understand that you are set in your ways. Your way is not supported by a minority in the genealogical community, it's not supported at all. When it comes to consumers, they want it easy, and the most easy way of representing familyrelations in a book is to use the names people are born with, this I have plenty of experience in, so I'm 100% sure that you are wrong in putting your views on to other consumers of genealogical information.

Ofcourse a majority of the profiles on Geni use name after marriage on the females. The reason is that the majority of profiles belong to the 20th century, where this was the custom, and many of them are still living, and therefor is written with the name they use right now. That fact doesn't make it more right when you go further back in time. I have said it before, do not use todays naming tradition on profiles/persons living more than 100 years ago, it is historically wrong and will result in finding information (or duplicates here on Geni) a lot harder.

I think genealogists will never change how they write the names of persons. They have done it like this for several 100 years, and there is no reason to change it now. And most consumers want it this way, because it makes the products easier to read and to find the persons you want to find in a book through the registry.

Ben, why did you choose Rundlett as her known name? Just because that was the name of the last person she married? What if she was married to Johan Webster for 50 years and the other 3 for only a couple of years each, then what name is she known by? No, your way is only making more trouble, please stay away from Ben's way of writing names.

The fantastic issue here Harald is that you are a great example of WHY we should not follow our various countries traditions, but check out what is the best approach. It is NOT so that all women all over the world switch to their husband's names - and that no one else ever changes their names ...

As Shmuel and Bjørn has pointed out MANY times: these conventions are meant for the COMMON HISTORICAL TREE - what you do with your close family and especially people born after 1900 - is entirely up to you. These profiles are PRIVATE.

Also: pointed out by MANY experienced genealogists in here: the GENEALOGICAL STANDARD is to list a person PRIMARILY by their birth/original name.

ALL known names should be listed somewhere - but with the current system (no name-timeline), describe in About.

If only a later name is known, you list that.

It's not so difficult :-)

What I also want to pinpoint all the time: Do not fabricate facts like a married name. That his history falsification.

I am ready to pull my hair out on this, in all seriousness.

You are imposing Scandinavian methods of searching American records. Why?

Remi wrote:

". The reason is that the majority of profiles belong to the 20th century, where this was the custom, and many of them are still living, and therefor is written with the name they use right now. That fact doesn't make it more right when you go further back in time. I have said it before, do not use todays naming tradition on profiles/persons living more than 100 years ago, it is historically wrong and will result in finding information (or duplicates here on Geni) a lot harder."

It is in fact the opposite case.

It is *easier* to find 20th century American female ancestors under their maiden names.

It is difficult to find 16th-19th century American ancestresses under anything but their married names to start. Then you do some detective work (or call on the detective work of those preceding you) to find their maiden names.

I already said:

You can cease to ask me as I am quite the amateur and beginner. Luckily there are many experts in American genealogy, meeting all kinds of professional certifications, members of societies, etc.

My guess is that they will agree on the proper way to display pedigree diagrams. They may agree that the Geni application display does not meet "international standards."

They will however say what I *know* from every day experience: in building a family tree you need to understand and work with the American tradition of a woman taking their husband's name.

May I go work on my family tree now in the easiest and faster ways known how?

Many thanks.

Place Names and Particles

A lot of names that later developed into surnames, and title-names, are based on places, telling us something about where a person was from or where he lived or ruled. Such names are common especially for nobility and landed gentry in many countries. These typically contain something similar to a preposition or "particle". A particle before a name is always written in lowercase letters, only the place/name is capitalized.
Thus (correct language-rule also applying):
de Bourgogne (not “Of Burgundy”),
de Normandie (not “Of Normandy”)
of England (not “Av England”)
d'Evreux (not “de Evreux” or “De evreux”)
d'Ivry (not "de Ivry" or "De Ivry"
von Sachsen (not “of Saxony”)
van Vloandern and de Flandre (not “of Flanders”)
av Valvatne
av Sverige (not "Of Sweden")
These names should also be treated as units and not split in Middle and Last Name fields. "Of" or "De" is never a Middle Name.
At some point in history these place names including particles often changed to regular surnames being perceived as ONE name, and spelling would often change to Devereaux, Delacroix, DeVere etc. The spellings of these and use of capitalization may vary a lot. Exactly how will be known by the families who use the names, but it does not apply to Medieval names. For more information, read the Wikipedia article.

I find that there is a problem with this part of the Naming Convention.
Based upon its international flavor, it makes good sense - except in England.

We Brits do in fact make a distinction between say the names
1 - “Richard de Clare”
and
2 - “Richard of Clare”
And the two are not interchangeable.

The first name “de Clare” is a family name used by some who came over with the Conqueror.

The second “of Clare” is not a family name or surname but a name used to indicate where the person was born or where he came from thus “William of Normandy” [William I of England]. In this context ‘Richard of Clare’ came from the area around the town of Clare on the Suffolk/Essex border or from the County of Clare in Ireland.

Quite a number of English Kings are known by their place of birth.
Edward II “of Carnarfon”,
Richard II “of Bordeaux,
Henry IV “of Bolingbroke” he was the son of John “of Gaunt” [the old English name for Ghent where he was born],
Henry VI “of Windsor” and so on.

Most of the sons of Edward III and known by their birth place.

Hi Remi:

I admit to poor communication during times when I probably haven't had enough sleep. I chose Rudleft as the last person, but if Shatswell or Webster were the preferred method (based on what documentation there is for the person), then that would be my method.

My whole point (again probably poorly communicated, but hopefully better summarized here) has been to try and make the profiles conform to documentation, including by what name they were ultimately known as. I don't think conforming to documentation is something you'd want to discourage, is it?

Reg, fully agree with your last post. There are of course exceptions (Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Vladimir the Great), but it too drives me a little crazy seeing "de" Anglicized to "of" or "Scandinavianized" (probably not a word, but hopefully it gets to the point) to "av".At first using the profiled person's language was how I was entering names into my tree - making educated guesses at the language used and then picking the appropriate participle place name pair. Then after all the merges and curator assignments, I became less concerned. But I think that once the historic portions of the tree settle a bit, I'd advocate your suggestion again.

Anyway, like Erica, I should be going back and making progress on the things I've started work on. That's probably more important than forum debates like this. (I think I'm through following this discussion for now.)

Erika, before you get bald or getting to far into your family tree, I think you should have a look at what one of your american professional genealogist is saying about this: http://www.genealogy.com/rhonda010600.html

And this is Rhondas homepage: http://www.rhondamcclure.com/ I think her credentials speak for themselves. So according to Rhonda, americans write the names in their genealogical databases the same way I do. So I'm not imposing any scandinavian method on you americans, you have the method already.

Got it now, thanks!

I will stick with the method that works for 10,000 ancestors in the GENI application. Again, it's about DISPLAY and REPORTING, not data entry.

Do I need to come up with a enforced policy for the American tree? Not my desire, the convention followed for the 400 years of American ancestry documented here has been pretty good for me.

Good morning to you to, Ben. And I'm glad it went good for the miners.

Documenting is one of the most important things we do. I'm also documenting all their names I find during their lives, but I stick to one they are born with, as americans also should do, which I just linked to.

Have fun with your genealogy.

Whatever, Erica......... Do whatever you want to. Just too bad that you do not understand. Maybe you should read some books of Rhonda.

birth name is birth name
display name is use name - requires extra typing, but due to design constraints - it's what we have
maiden name is birth name

I am sorry for all the argumentation here. We're all going to do what we're going to do. I have learned about the historical tree. I have tried to make the changes as I learn.

I don't understand Cyrllic names, and am grateful for the translation. I can learn about Norwegian conventions, and I am a nice person, and don't change what I don't understand.

I am learning about the historical tree, and changing what I understand needs changing.

This is a cooperative collaborative environment, and I would appreciate a little more cooperation and collaboration without angst.

I wish I didn't follow this discussion, but I am learning from it.

And I feel terrible that I get testy, when I so much appreciate the work and effort put into delineating the conventions for the pre 1600 historical tree, and for other countries and languages. Those guidelines have made it much easier for me to work with those records in geni.

I just haven't seen the need for similar guidelines in the American tree, have you?

Erica, Ben and others, I have been doing American genealogical research for 20 years, and I have always seen the woman's name listed by her birth or maiden name. That is indeed an American genealogical standard, not just a Scandinavian one. What you seem to be referring to is encyclopedia-type historical entries, in which a woman would be listed by the name she was most well known as a historical figure (like Dolly Madison or Martha Washington). But in *genealogical* trees, they will always be listed by their birth names as the daughters of their parents, first, and then as wives and mothers, second. There is really no need for all this argumentation. Geni *is* trying to follow a genealogical model. If you don't know and research the birth names of your female American ancestors, how will you know what families they come from? All genealogical databasing programs that I've seen ask for data entry as the birth or maiden name. Then the way you DISPLAY it is your option that you can change at your own discretion. And so it is on Geni too--so WHY all the argument?

You can set your own setting under My Account-->Name Preferences-->

Set your preference for maiden name display:

* Do not display maiden names
* Maiden name instead of last name
* Maiden name instead of last name in CAPS
* Maiden name appended, in parentheses
* Maiden name appended, in parentheses (tree only)

These are the choices CURRENTLY in place on Geni.com.

SO PLEASE, folks--please enter the birth names of your female ancestors, and if you desire to see them displayed differently, then set it that way in your settings--but don't try to impose your preferences on all of us!

And as for using titles in suffix fields--until Geni creates an adequate title field, I will continue to do so, as a curator, when needing to add important information about a person or to disambiguate him or her. In medieval Europe, the tile often became the name a person was known by--so it is important to keep it in the name field and not in nicknames. For example, someone named Robert FitzRichard Lord of Warwick might have been called Warwick or Lord Warwick, and so this title is essential to identify him.

Thank you.

I'm following this thread. This post is just a test. I'm having trouble posting.

Kudos, Pam :-)

Thanks, Pam. Good that other americans come and help in this discussion so we can get rid of the misunderstandings. You wrote it a lot better than I did.

And, yes, Erica, I do. Like it or not, this is a genealogical site, let's keep it that way, and do thinks the way we are supposed to, like genealogists.

I'm with what Pam is saying. In fact I do place birth name in the maiden name field. That is the design of the field. I don't then go and place that same name in the last name field.

With that guiding me in my data entry Remi can see profiles I have entered the way he wants to see them and I can see them the way I want to see them.

However this entire time we have been discussing this I get the impression that Remi wants the birth name to go into the Last name field. That method of data entry doesn't give both of us the ability to see the tree the way we want to see the tree. Instead it forces me to see the tree the way he wants to see it.

Is this not what the argument boils down to?

I'm with Jonathan. Of course I enter the birth name when known in the maiden name field, why would I do otherwise.

And my understanding is that Remi wants Americans to enter the maiden name again in the last name field, which means that the record does not have the married name anywhere in it, unless I follow Bjorn's suggestion to document with a marriage certificate copy (cost: $15) every known last name, which is not possible in the record set I'm working with (10,000).

By entering both the maiden name and the (reputedly) married name in the last name field, I have the greatest amount of information with the most display options possible.

Am I missing something?

Just to be ultra clear:

Maiden name: Maiden name field
Married name: Last name field

Applying only to records for American women that I am empowered or interested in working with, from the years 1620-present time, not applying to names originating in languages other than English.

Pam,

I know what you're seeing, of course I see the same thing. You are seeing a report. A report is drawn from a database. The database has more records in it than are displayed, and all databases include as many fields filled out as possible.

When people add a married name without having any sources telling that she had or used a married name, but just add it because it is tradition in your family, - that is fabrication of facts and history falsification.

This is also why we try to focus on the laws in the affected countries as a guideline. If you for example find a Norwegian woman with a married name and married before 1923 it is very unlikely that is is a fact.

This is also why Remi and others ask people to read the linked Wiki page about name traditions before being bombastic that using a married name is correct, especially when time period and location tells that it is very unlikely that a married name existed.

As far as I understand without being any sort of historian, American customs are based on the English Common Law.

English Common Law View of Name Change:
"Historically, the husband and wife customarily adopted the name of the spouse with the most property and since men typically held more property than women, most women took the husband's name ... This custom never became law, and the English common law view was that a woman's surname was not bound to her marital status and arose only through her use of a name ... Moreover, the right to adopt another name was not limited to males or females ... The concept that the husband and wife are one, the 'one' being the husband, has been abandoned ... Insistence that a married couple use one name, the husband's, is equally outmoded."

http://policy.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/1502712028

So this is the current practice, with reference to the historical practice.

I am hurt that you find my writing style overly wordy. I try for parsimony, not bombast.

But again: Would you add a married name based on this if you don't have any sources?

It is much better to stick to the genealogical standard and keep the birth name. Anything else would be fabrication of facts.

Jonathan and Erica, no, no, no, no, no. Please don't start this again. What you are suggesting is not what Pam is saying and it's not what Rhonda is saying either in my link. They say that in a genalogical database, which Geni is (or are you disputing that, too?) a woman's name is written, listed, shown, registered and reported with her birth name (maiden name) in her main last name field. In Geni that field is the field between Middle name and Suffix on the Edit page, it's called Last name. Writing it this way, which is the correct way of writing a woman's last name in a genalogical database (which Geni still is), it will not be necessary to write her name in the Maiden name field. This is what I do, what Pam's doing and what Rhonda suggest in her article I linked to.

Then you can display it any way you feel like afterwood by using your preferences. A womans name after marriage, if she ever changed it, will be reflected in her husbands last name during the timeperiod they are married or while she is his widow, until she marries again or dies. That is the way it should be in a genealogical database, even in USA

So just to be clear, Geni is a genealogical program, and in the program there are several genealogical databases, where "the Big Tree" is one of them.

Because of that we write:
Name at birth (maiden name) in the Last Name field.
Maiden Name field should because of this usually be empty.
This applies to every genealogical database in every genealogical program that are writing down names from the western hemisphere, ie Europe (west and east) and America (north, middle and south, except the indians)

Erica, just give it up. Talking in genealogical terms you are wrong in your view, and i wish that you could understand that, but I think you are too much set in your ways and/or too stubborn to do that. Please don't teach your way of doing it to any other beginning genealogist, we like it when they are taught the right way from the beginning.

Remi,

Sorry, but your plan is obviously in conflict with Geni's design.

If what you want to happen were what Geni intended, the field names would be different. As it is, you assert that the maiden name should be empty. Which raises the obvious question: why, then, did Geni include a field that is, almost by definition, the birth name?

What I think has you confused is that Geni is BOTH a database and a display program. While you can (correctly) assert that genealogists use the birth name in drawing pedigrees, drawing those things is only one part of genealogy. Other parts of the study include biography, and that uses different conventions.

There can be no argument what the "Maiden name" field is intended, by Geni, to be used for. It is for the name at birth.

I personally use a convention that IF the "Maiden name" field is empty, then the "Last name" field is contains the name at birth. This makes the system consistent with modern usage, and avoids the duplication you get if one sets the display option to be "maiden name in brackets" [which I use because it provides the most information] and semantically applying a maiden name to a man is a problem!

The most pervasive complaint against this sort of idea seems to be from people who argue that false data is sometimes created when people incorrectly attach a husband's name to a woman. But that is not an issue with the convention, but rather one with errors in data entry! An identical problem occurs with the naming of children: people tend to assume that issue takes the name of the male parent, but this is not always true -- consider Britain's royal princes, who took the Queen's name (well, something close to it) not their father's. Another example from that same family comes from making assumptions about gender: typically the women use the female versions of titles, but the current holder of the duchy of Normandy is a woman, and she is not the Duchess of Normandy!

So mistakes will happen, but realistically, they have nothing to do with any convention (and, in fact, chances are that anyone making such mistakes wouldn't be aware of it anyway).

P.s. Remi, your claim that Pam is not saying what Erica assumes she said is also at odd with what Pam wrote. If she was advocating your notion of using the birth name as the last name, and leaving the maiden name blank, why would she list the options for display of the maiden name? By your logic, there'd be nothing to display!

I also think you're getting a bit rude and dogmatic in how you're saying things. But that's separate from the obvious contradictions in what you're saying.

Then you interpret Geni intensions different from me. Ordinary genealogical programs also have a naming field called Maiden name, and the field is put under the heading Alternate names, why, do you think, is it put there?

Pam can speak for her self, and I'm pretty sure that she writes names just like I do, a persons name at birth goes in the main naming fields and those asre first name, (middlename), and last name, and that is the genealogical standard og how to write names. Maiden name field in genealogical programs are most of the time never used. Any other genealogical program is also a database and a disply program, no difference there, and in the biographies these genealogical programs produce, the name a a person i first shown with is the main name of the profile.

Your way of thinking and interpreting, Malcolm, is not the way genealogist think and interpret, and if your interpreting of Genis intentions with the naming fields is correct, then Geni is not following the genealogical standards.