User Question: What Name to Use

Answering another Reader Question:

What would be the proper procedure to: If a male changes his surname name legally is his birth surname still the name the one used ? Ie: born Gingles Adopted and name changed to Yaworski Legally changes surname to Sundberg What name do I use for my genealogy records? or do I use notes to show the history?

I'll expand on that to "Any Name Changes", including names that the Family knows.

The simple answer is, Record the NAME as claimed by the record? With the appropriate Citation.

Here is an example from my own database:

The "Also Known As" or A.K.A. is what he was called by many, others by the Preferred AKA Fact.

The highest number of Citations, also does not Drive the Preferred Name Fact. In this case, there are 7 records that has his name with "Sr" at the end. I have blogged about that as well. As with females, I make the Preferred Name as the Birth Surname. He wasn't born with "Sr" as part of his name. Later records may reflect "Sr", but I do not use that as the Preferred name.

The control over the Preferred Name comes from User Evaluation of the records.

The Reader's question gets to the next level, where the Surname Changes. My preference, in general, is Birth Surname. The Exception, and I have them, gets down to the reader or audience of your database. My cousin was adopted by her step-father. I made her Preferred Name to be her adoptive surname. So family may drive the name preference. So, the person asking the question might choose to use the most recent surname.

User's choice.

Now, the AKA issue. Not specifically asked, but in Reports and Charts, that AKA field is Optional.

In the Publish Workspace, Chart Collection, Pedigree Chart (and most others) you have this option under Items to Include

In a Descendants Report, with AKA selected, it would look like

Which option to use ? It's up to you. As mentioned, my preference is Birth Names, Family or Given Names and Surnames, but there are times, when it is appropriate to make another Name entry as Preferred. In my example: I have 10 different Name Facts, with 42 Citations for all of the Name facts. In this specific example, the Name Fact with 24 was my choice, as my current thinking it is the most accurate, but I have another example of 8 different Name Facts, 39 Citations, but the Preferred Name Fact only has 4 Citations. 

Or, as I have seen and heard "It Depends"


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Copyright © 2018 by H R Worthington

Blog Question: Child with multiple Names

This question is from an FTM2017 User:

Naming in FTM2017 for an illegitimate child who was placed for adoption, later adopted and who finally discovered biological parents thru DNA

Because we have the option of having Multiple Name FACTs, I enter the names as I find them, Citing each entry, as I have mentioned many times before.

The decision that has to be made, is WHICH Name Fact should be the Preferred Name Fact. I can't nor will I answer that question. That choice is up to YOU. But, don't make that choice lightly. Be sensitive of the audience of your research.

More importantly, is the Parent to Child Relationships need to be appropriately selected, and the relationship between the Parents needs to be looked at very carefully.

Your citations are very important and that the documentation needs to be specific as to the relationships it claims.

I would keep ALL of the Name Facts as documents, then make the Preferred Fact Choice.

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

More about handling of Names

More about Names



Here are several other blog posts on the Name Fact

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2014/09/ftm2014-how-to-generate-list-of-names_21.html

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2014/06/whats-in-name.html

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2011/11/file-sharing-and-brick-walls-part-2.html

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2009/07/data-base-clean-up-how-to-handle-names.html

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2012/08/do-you-source-your-persons-name-spouses.html

Comments in the +CousinRussCommunity

https://plus.google.com/u/0/104046972028906209620/posts/aQz7dQehmk6
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Copyright © 2015 by H R Worthington

What's in a Name ?

In the Cousin Russ Genealogy Community, there was an interesting question asked today.

Do I correct to birth spelling or let it change to what was at death? I haven't gotten actual vital records (as this is a 2nd great grand) but am using census records and as I said his headstone. Is there a "rule" about this situation?

The question is posted here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105640452630116113688/posts/TS4E22wa538 

There is some read dialog going on with this question, but I thought I would share the best example that I have in my database.

That first column, on the right, has the number of Citations for each of the different forms of this name. For example the top one, has 11 Citations, with 6 images, the bottom one 12 Citations and 3 images. That's 36 Citations for 8 versions of his name.

But look at the Preferred name, it only has ONE (1) Citation. Look at that one citation:

It's MY citation, as first name knowledge. How can this be?

If I look at all 8 versions of his name, I could / can jump to the conclusion as to what is real name is. Much link the person asking the question, I don't have many vital records in my hands.

Looking at the first appearance of the name (with the green background) there are 11 citations. 2 of them are from his wife and 3 of them are my own citations. His wife wouldn't document his complete name in what I found in her archives. Id she ever called him by his full name, he might have been in trouble, but ... no documentation there.

What about my citations on that version of his name? All three were from 3 DIFFERENT Find-A-Grave Memorials. Guess I should contact the Memorial Owner for those three web pages. Oh, that is also ME. They are linked together BASED on the name on the Plaque that you see when you look at his memorial. That is what MY photograph shows.

Please understand that I record and cite what I see. 8 versions of his name and 36 citations. BUT the one I Prefer is the name I entered into Family Tree Maker.

WHY?

Looking at the variations in the various documents and doing some evaluation, they helped me determine what hs full name IS, as I recorded it. But IF I go back a generation, HIS father bears the SAME name but without the "Jr" No, he is not a "Sr", although there are 8 citations with "Sr", but each of them were Authored Works. So, "Jr" is OK.

Looking back for a number of generations the First Name is consistent so there is a naming pattern going on here. The "Jr" was the first son, but of the 8th son from the previous generation, but we pick up that first name in the previous 2 generations. A family naming pattern hold.

But looking at the more recent generation, we had a "III". The oldest son, family naming pattern fits. But, that alone is not the reason for my Preference in the full name. That Middle Name does NOT fall in that Naming Pattern. That middle name doesn't appear in the direct line anywhere.

However, that middle name came from the "Father-in-law of his 2nd great aunt". That name is in fact a family name.

Keeping in mind that FTM2014 offers us a "Use Preferred Facts" in charts and reports, so when printing either the preferred Name will be displayed or printed.

There are two more clues here. 1) I have that family Bible that belonged to the "Father-in-law of his 2nd great aunt", and 2) I am the "III".

Bottom line, for me:

• Record what I see
• Cite where I saw the information
• Evaluate the information
• Draw a conclusion

But, I must be missing a step in this process. Isn't what I have presented "conflicting" information ?

For me, not it's not conflicting information, but a recording of the information that is an issue. How long ago was it that names became so important? When were Surnames created or made a requirement? There are some US government documents that only have ONE box to fill in, for middle names. It is taking me years to get my full name (minus those government documents) on all of the forms with my name on them. There are some OFFICIAL documents I can't put my full name on.

To make things more interesting, for the first 13 years of my life, Sr, Jr, and III lived on the SAME farm. My Grandfather and I both went by our Middle Name, my Dad his first. We handled my name in a different manner, but I won't go there.

Is there a "rule" ?

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to handle a Surname out of order in Index

I saw this question on Facebook: 

When you have a name like....Van De Walker. Should it be entered in FTM like that or should it be VanDeWalker with no spaces? Not sure how the spaces effect searching

 Very good question, Here is how I would enter this info FTM2014. I'll start on the Plan Workspace, but the same can be done in the People Workspace.

 I just typed in George Van De Walker into the Name Field. Looks OK here so far. In the People Workspace it also looks right in the three places it will appear with the person as the focus perso

It's in the correct order in the index as well.

IF you enter such a Surname and it does NOT appear in the index correctly (out of order), go to the Right Hand Panel, and as you hover over the name Fact, an ICON will appear.

 That ICON is where you could add a Citation to the Name FACT. That's not what we want to do here. You want to put the Cursor into the Name field and an Edit ICON will appear.

You can also just do a CTRL+N to get this next screen.

 So, the Surname format is correct. 

I don't have an example of a Surname that isn't in the correct Sort Order in the Index, so I don't have an example of a surname that is not in the right order, but this is where you would correct the Surname.  

Here IS a common Surname Issue. That is, not showing up in the Index correctly. George Van De Walker 2nd

With Family Tree Maker, you use a comma for a suffix for Jr and NO comma for III or IV, etc, but what about 2nd?

 The Center Panel and Right Panel "look" correct, BUT the Index is NOT. If there were more surnames, if would be above the "A's" in the index. Clicking into the Name field as before, we see

 The "2nd" is in the Surname field, which is why it's showing up in the index incorrectly. To resolve this, you move the "2nd" and "Van De Walker" where they belong

 and the problem is resolved.

That last part of the question, about searching, is answered by looking at the Web Search Workspace.

 The Van De Walker is in the Surname field as it should.

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Copyright © 2013 by H R Worthington

Data Base Clean Up - How to handle Names

My friend, Randy Seaver, of the Genea-Musing Blog has made another Challenge.

Are there standards for names in family trees?

I am quoting his blog so that responding to his Database Clean up is easier. He asks great questions. I am guessing that each of us have asked our selves the same questions. In fact, last eveing I was a Family Tree Maker, Version 2009, and some of these same questions came up. So, it's time for my take on them.

He starts:

"[For those wondering why I'm still working in FTM 16, it's a long story. Mainly it is because I am real comfortable with it and can work fairly quickly in it, and then I can import the native FTW file to FTM 2009 and RootsMagic.]

My guess is, each of use has done this, especially moving from Version 16 to Version 2008 or 2009. For me, it was the question of Which Version was easier to do the clean up. When I made this conversion, I checked or both versions with Copies of my Working Family File. I wanted to work with the Same Information with both Versions.

Actually, I started my clean up in Version 16, but quickly discovered Version 2009 was easier. Now, I was NOT dealing with the Name issue, I was working on the Place / Location entries. Since Randy was only addressing Names, I will post my thoughts on each question.

Before I start, I suggest two things. Back Up your Family File. Don't go forward until you do.

Second, make a Copy of the file to check out how you want that file to look like when you are done. Especially with the Names, run some test Reports and look at some Test Trees, to see if they look like what YOU want them to look like. In other words, look at the Output to help you determine how you want to do the Input.

Only my opinion and it's what I did.


Randy Continues:

"I would really like to create a genealogy database that I can be proud of, with standardized naming conventions and the like."

That is a Great statement. I can buy into that. Not being a professional genealogist, nor a "wanna be" professional I can only say what I understand what the 'standards' might be. Of interest, is the Comment made on Randy's Blog by Rebecca, referring to a standard that was proposed by Gary Mokotoff. It can be found on this website:

http://www.iijg.org/home/standards.html

I had not read it until today. What I will say below is not what has been proposed.>

Randy continues:

"When I looked in my index list for the names, I found that I have been very inconsistent with my naming conventions, including:

* (unknown) - I have some persons named (unknown) because I don't know either their first or last birth names. This is different from persons with no names at all who are listed as I deleted them because they had no connections to any other person in my tree. Should I use underscores like _____ for an unknown name? Should I use FNU for "first name unknown" and LNU for "last name unknown?"

Here is my take, and the reason why I suggested looking at Reports and Trees to see how you like the results. Try each of them.

For me, I have used 5 Underscores: _____ . Reason, I can live with the Reports and Tree format. The benefit is when you share your findings, I have found that people, knowing he information will "fill in the blanks".

When you look at Indexes or lists of names, they stand out very clearly what you have unknown Name information. It a reminder to fill in the blanks.


* known first name and unknown last name. I could use underscores or LNU.

* unknown first name and known last name. I could use underscores or FNU.

I use the 5 Underscores for Both. But, please see if you like what that looks like.


* Persons found with more than one first name in the records. Or a diminutive like Harry for Henry, Bob for Robert, Bert for Albert or Herbert, Molly for Mary, Abbie for Abigail, Peggy for Margaret, Sally for Sarah, etc. I've been putting these in as "Henry/Harry" (without the quotes) and getting a notice from FTM that there's an unrecognized character.

For Family Tree Maker, and that's the only program that I work with, has a Field for AKA, or Also Known As. The good news here, is that in most trees or reports, you can Specifiy IF you want the AKA to appear. That field will also be exported in a GEDCOM file. That is for Randy's Bert or Albert or Herbert question.

As for the "what was the real name", where you find in a your research, Family Tree Maker has the option to have more than one Name FACT.

In the example from last night. One document had Michael, another had Michael J. Which to I use. My answer is Both. Two Name FACTs.

The tricky part here is Selecting the Preferred Name Fact. Again, when reports or trees are created, Family Tree Maker has the option to see ALL of the FACTs or only the Preferred FACT. In the Example I have in my file, that I was using last evening, I found 4 different ways the name of the individual was presented in my Source information. Base on the other information and relationships, I could determine that the four names were the same individual.

Of course, there are Source-Citations on each of the names in my file.

Taking this one step further, and understanding of who is going to look at your research, in a tree or report is important. Lets say that everyone in the family knew a gentleman by "Uncle Harry". However, his full real name was Henry. The full NAME FACT would be Henry, but the AKA was Harry, or Uncle Harry. This is a case when the AKA field would be used in my file. Harry is in the AKA field, and the AKA is printed in the tree or report.


* Persons found with a first name in one record and an obvious nickname in another. I've been doing the same thing as the diminutive, e.g. "Henry/Skip." These are usually nicknames and I've seen them input as Henry "Skip" with the nickname in quotes.

I mentioned this above. My further comment is how do YOU want it to look in the Software begin used. In Family Tree Maker the quotes and slashes are not required, but can be entered. As Randy mentioned above, there will be an error Warning to deal with. I don't use those characters since I have control how the Name is displayed.

* Widows (and divorcees too) that marry again. I have a lot of "Mary Jones (widow Smith)" in my database because Tom Brown married Mary Smith in the records and she was the widow of Mr. Smith. Even worse, I have many of these loose widows without a known maiden name. I shouldn't be inputting her as "Mary Smith" because I don't know her maiden surname. Should I be inputting "Mary _____ Smith" or "Mary MNU Smith?' Or just "Mary _____," "Mary MNU" or "Mary LNU" and connect her to an unknown "FNU Smith."

In Family Tree Maker, it is expected that the Birth Surname is entered for the females. Having said that, from the example above, the unknown birth name or maiden name, I handle it like I handle any unknown name.

Within Family Tree Maker, again, you have the option to present the name, in reports or trees. When the married name is desired, the Contents, Items to include, has the ability to "Use married name for Female".

While we are here, the Name format option also includes the ability to "Display last name in all caps".

There is something that needs to be addressed here. In my family file, I have a married female, who did NOT, legally, take. This latter option might cause a problem. In the same file, there is a female who was married, then divorced. In the divorce papers, she took back, legally, her maiden, or birth surname.

This may present an issue for certain other family members, in printed trees and reports. Entering the data consistently and the use of the Name options are important to know and understand.

In either case, the use of the NOTES section is important to make use of.

In the Proposed Standard, by Gary Mokotoff, he makes a very important point. "Married women are identified by their maiden name, that is, their legal name ..." (page 4, paragraph 1.2). A little further down that paragraph, he discusses an immigrant, that upon entry into the U.S., the "changed her given name ... ". The key term here, for me, is "legal name".

Another entry on this Blog was on Searching Census Records, within Family Tree Maker for females:

Census Search for Females

The above use of the "_____" has little impact on the Surname. When I trying to use "unknown" as a name, there was a tendency to overlook the word "unknown" in the name field. I my experience, it was a little more obvious that an unknown name was being searched for.



* I've also seen the string "--?--" in genealogy periodicals and books for unknown names.

This standard suggests the use of the "?" for unknown portions of name (Paragraph 1.4). I tried that, but found when reading a report or looking at a tree, it was confusing to some of the readers.


Randy concludes:


"I note that the Rootsweb WorldConnect databases have:

* 60,920 entries for surname - LNU
* 11,052 entries for surname MNU
* 92,331 entries for surname - Unk
* 5,232,913 entries for surname Unknown
* 181,428 entries for surname (Unknown)
* 20,305 entries for surname --?--
* 124,687 entries for surname _____
* 1,166,278 entries for surname ?
* 8,117 for surname ?????
* 78 entries for surname Whoknows
* 64 entries for surname Dontknow
* 37 entries with surname Mystery
* 1,493 entries for surname Who
* 35 entries for surname Who?


Are there any standards for inputting these names into a genealogy database? Who has the authority to deal with this? Have there been extended discussions about these issues that I've missed in books, articles, blogs, message boards or mailing lists? What do you do in your genealogy software database?"


Again, one of the comments provide a proposed standard.

This topic comes up frequently on the Various Family Tree Maker message boards and email lists. There has only been discussions, and not one has seen a Name "standard". Not being part of any of the professional organizations, I wouldn't know if a standard is being worked on. I haven't seen a specific discussion, where a conclusion or recommendation was presented and agreed to.

As a User of Family Tree Maker, I can only offer how I use the Program, with my logic on how to handle the issue at hand. Just be consistent in how you handle these issues.

In Family Tree Maker, on the People, Family screen, the Left Panel provides some display options:

Note: Name index options.

• Use AKA if available as a middle name: If an alias is included in quotes after the middle name , both the given name and AKA (Also Known As) are listed in the Index.
• Use AKA if available as an additional entry: If an alias or nickname has been entered for an individual, both the given name and AKA are listed in the Index.
• Use titles if available: If a name includes a title, both the given name and title with name are listed in the Index.
• Use married names for females: Lists married females by their married name instead of the maiden name.

To open the Options: Dates/Names dialog box in Family Tree Maker 2009:
Click Tools > Options > Dates/Names.

The Knowledge Base website also has:

Two First Names: FTM: How do I enter someone who has two first names?

There is a Tool to convert a Name that had been entered in All Capital letters. The "standard" is the use of Upper and Lower cases, and it referred to in Paragraph 1.8 (Syntax. All portions of the name will be presented in upper/lower case.) This tool will help with this transition.

Convert Names Tool in Family Tree Maker 2009


Another name Knowlege Base article is:

FTM: How do I enter missing or unusual surnames?


PS - for Randy. You might want to look at what the Find and Replace feature will do for you, IF you choose to make any changes. BUT, don't forget to BACK UP your Family File BEFORE you state.

Thanks for listening.