Consensus on using Maiden Names

Ahh - Elton has more cache, then.

As to Geni's matching criteria - I have a feeling it must create more problems than it solves. Sometimes it feels like if somebody's uncle's 2nd wife's neighbour has a similar looking first name it will produce a possible match!?

PS I think, this conversation thread has been made into a project - if we scroll back.

The Naming Conventions Project has been started:

http://www.geni.com/projects/discussions/Coalition-for-the-Standard...

Thanks, Sharon.

K Anderson, You just made me smile, the first of the day, with your comment.... :-)

Legal name changes and adoption are two different things for the 'big tree' I think....one does NOT change blood line and one DOES. FOR THE MOST PART (there are exceptions, I know) but USUALLY, name changes, whether lgeal or not are a 'choice' of the person and adoption STOPS a bloodline....those I won't deal with now.

The current method of Geni tree matches, I believe, utilizes the WHOLE of the first name field...so the name WILLIAM, if it appears anywhere in a person's name, whether as 1st or middle name or in ANY order will appear in a tree match.....(perhaps even the 2nd name field...I'm not sure) but Elizabeth (for example...) brings up Ann Elizabeth, Elizabeth Mary, Maude Elizabeth, etc, etc , etc....and ANY match within a profile adds to the tree matches...no matter the position (mother, daughter,sister etc)....or so it appears....

Or am I imagining that the match criteria seems to be infinite rather than finite.....that it is TOO open rather than not open enough...

I have no other way of trying to explain what I see..where mothers become daughters or sisters of the people they really belong with...add maiden AND married names and the list of matches becomes a mess...
I TRY to slough thru 474 matches to a dominent profile that has no dates for generations but it almost seems that they re=up after I have sifted through a whole mess of them...and that's only 1 profie..

Does anyone ELSE have this showing in 'tree matches?"

Fay, the things I do when I have hundreds of possible matches. Edit the profile to make sure the names are in the correct fields.Get titles out of the name fields and into suffix field. Nicknames or AKA into the nickname field and any other changes. If it is a woman, husbands name in the last name field, multiple husbands, use the one with the most children. Save the changes and you should loose most of the useless "matches". I had a case where the count went from over 400 to two and they were both good.
Try it, you might like the results:-)

Noah Tutak We really need a Prefix field for titles, not only Count but Reverend Doctor etc.

Like the idea of a Prefix but do NOT like using the surname of most children...could be VERY misleading....how would you find marriage info if woman had 10 children with one but spent the last 40 years married to another and had property with him etc...

Throwing in a idea for adoption: just notate the person in RED if bloodline broken (but leave if a couple adopt a niece, nephew or other BLOODLINE person)...

The line for Legal purposes would hold up but for bloodline would be essentially 'flagged'

Fay, I agree that we need a way to include multiple spouses but to resolve merge issues the chances are better by going with most children. After merges are resolved, go back and change spouses. Boring detail work but until the multiple spouse issue is resolved, that seems to work for me. Since Geni is following this discussion, maybe we could get some input from them.

There is an underutilized capability already in Geni under relationship to designate 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc husabnds or wives....why not utilize it...I find a heck of a lot of profilles where it isn't noted at all; leaving the door open for all sorts of confusion..

Perhaps it could be better Hi-lited or something...but it IS there...and I've used it to show a woman who was 3rd wife to a man that had 3 other wives prior to her. She was HIS 4th wife but HE was her 3rd...it shows ALREADY in Geni....

Fay yes it is there, but many people don't look at the relationships tan let alone use it. Too many things are obscure in Geni. I think the whole profile editing should be on one page then people who are kind of afraid to explore would maybe find it.

Just a story on using names the official or government way.

A young man was enlisting in the Army. He gave his name as R. B. Jones. The recruiter said, no I need your name not initials. The young man said, I don't have names, just initials. The recruiter thought for a while then changed the form to read R(only) B(only) Jones. Sure enough, the first pay stub the recruit received was made out to Ronly Bonly Jones

I love it, Eldon ;-)

Cute story Eldon...

Reminds me of my daughter; named Kris (Kristin)...she is in the Air Force and at her 1st station she was assigned a room with another Chris.....(for Christopher)....not that she or he minded...but it was changed VERY quickly.......no further errors were made thereafter ...that I was told about, anyway....

@Johan Pettersen
Maiden names for men as well ?
When my sister got married both she and her husband chose to take his mothers maiden name as their surames(?)/family names(?) . In this case it would have been nice to have a "maiden name" field for both of them . These were of course different from each other as well as different from their new family name .

I think now would be a good time for a summary. But first, here's a cross reference to the other discussion about maiden names at the Coalition for the Standardization of Geni Naming Conventions -
http://www.geni.com/discussions/87273

Quite clearly we will not be able to reach consensus on a hard and fast rule. Everybody will base their views and opinions on their experiences from their family, from the country of their birth, the country in which they are living, their social experiences and what they have researched and seen on the internet.

So, I propose that we invite as many curators and professional genealogists as possible to join the discussion. Let's get all their views on the table and then we can take it from there. But we need them to be from as many different countries as possible.

I'm not quite sure how to go about that though. Is it a good idea, bad idea, would anybody like to start inviting the curators and professional genealogists?

too funny, Eldon! I liked that story! Typical government blunder! I started using the married name and maiden name fields and stopped using the "display name as" field on geni.com plus now I try to remember to make all profiles public, so maybe in the future I'll have less troubles! We'll see!
Best Regards,
Della Dale Smith

I agree, that IS too funny Eldon!

My humble opinion is - Please keep it simple.
Use the fathers surname as second name (if available) and leave "maiden name" EMPTY.
That is the way the PRO-genealogists do.
There is plenty of room elsewhere in profile to tell the stories of changed names if married seven times...

Finally..someone who has the right idea...

Libraries and Historical Societies USE this site...but prefer LDS (Legacy), Ancestry.Com etc that use father's surname for both male and female...(in order to track family lines backwards.)...

Why not just eliminate it..

Add prefix ; have display a separate entry....and for Pete's sake lets use standard font....people who insist on lower case or CAPS only make it harder to merge and correct merge issues...if they would only look at Geni itself to see how to correctly enter names....(I grant that some PDF programs call for CAPS but those people who had them are, to my knowledge, slowly fixing them.)...cannot say the same for those who think its neat to use lower case...

For those who think that middle name is a place to write (2nd wife), the middle, the one whose wife applied for his pension...and numerous other entries.....there is the place to put order of spouse under 'Relationship' and 'About me' is a great place to clarify information..

P.S. "Deadend " is not a profile. Nor 4 generations of ?? as male parent and ?? as female parent.

To play devil's advocate:

How then do you deal with Mary Smith in Geni? There are 51 million profiles.

Mother and father and husband are usually different...and there are "About Me' notes....it cannot be any more difficult than having everyone have the same last name as it is now ...where everyone has the same surname....and probably same 1st names....

Not all 51 million are Smith...it just seems that way..and if they all have last name of Smith (both male and female) then it seems to me it becomes harder, not easier...

You must have better eyesight in tree view than I have then! :)

Actually that's not always true. Will see what the general conscious id a t my gen meeting tomorrow. If we are going to what the professionals do then we have to change system of birth, death and marriages date.. Day should always go first, then month, then year and on the subject of years we shout be able to put in about before, after and this is an example,' 1654/1655 or whatever, since in many instances that is how the professionals do it as they do not have exact date. The way we're doing can cause a major problem in merging. Some people pick one date and other's the other date and then we don't agree. Judy

Why do we quote LDS, Ancestry, Genealogies and the Web and then NOT do it the way it is done by Pro-Genealogists....

Do not suppose that the maiden name field is even used right...it is NOT...there are people who put the maiden in middle name position, who hyphenate all known married names in the display field, who even have 1st name in maiden name field....who put parentheses around maiden name in maiden name field (when the field automatically puts parentheses around it anyway)...who pick the surname on how many children that particular woman had with the husband...and hyphenated surnames..

I have an elderly relative who is not very computer literate but is gung-ho in trying to document his extended family - entering folks, commenting some place (where varies) on every family member he ever met. I think this is wonderful, and do not want to discourage him. Most of his entries are all lower-case -- and as I said, I do not want to discourage him - which I think changing every profile he enters would do!!

It disturbs me much less than another relative who claimed her profile and has changed her husband's name (and date of birth) twice now. After the first change, I suggested she return child's father as ex-husband, add the new one -- suggestion ignored, and when she changed spouses again, she changed the info again; each change in husband's identity appears as change in child's father as well. And it is her immediate family, so I accept it is her choice, tho I hate it.

If geni is to be open to as many folks as possible, we need to accept many different ways of doing things. If it is not for newbies to genealogy who are just discovering their family connections, just discovering how to enter them, with no knowledge of conventions and /or those with little in the way of computer skills - then say so up front.

Lois

As a curator I would rather deal with lower case profiles that are reasonably accurate than with the kind of family issue you describe. :)

"If geni is to be open to as many folks as possible, we need to accept many different ways of doing things ...."

I really like that as a philosophy. I do think people learn rapidly. Just give them a chance.

Erica

Funny you should mention the 51 million Mary Smiths on Geni. I just added another. =)

The days of only the male line counts has long dissipated and woman's lines are now just as if not more important as and tne men.s We need the maiden names to follow the lines. What happens int eh case of my family where Thomas Parker married Anna Jenness and had Benjamin Parker who then married Anna Taylor. He died , she re marries A Jenness, a cousin to her 1st husband, and thous becomes Anna Jenness. Have to follow all the names. One Gen. expert that i know, insist all names be listed. Now isn't that a fine howdy a do! Depends on who talk to!