Family Historian User Group

Hi
I input all my relations on their birth name, but am a little confused when the females married as I am not sure when or how they take the married name ie Annie Pask to Annie Humphreys.

The problem is she is a witness to her sister wedding and I only have her as Annie Pask not Annie Humphreys. I am trying to insert witnesses.
Could somebody please advise me what I am doing wrong or what I should do.
Many thanks

John

Personally I never put in the Married name as an alternate, if you want to clarify the Witness sentence you could customise the text to include

(as Annie Humphreys)

There are some notes on names in the Knowledge Base here
how_to:handle_people_with_multiple_names#married_name|> Married Name

If I don't know the maiden name of the wife I put her husbands name in brackets e.g. (Smith)

When I do find the maiden name I change this to her correct name.

One must also bear in mind the wife could be having another marriage so if you see her name it could be her previous husbands name.
Always best to use maiden name whenever it is known.

My experience with Americans is that they tend to include the maiden name next to her married name at the end e.g Brown Smith.
Brown being the maiden name

Victor

I always use the birth names for females, married or not. If John Smith married Anne, I use the form Anne /Smith Nee ??/ until I discover her true maiden name. If I find their marriage, and she is shown to be a widow named Ann Brown, I then amend her surname from /Smith Nee ??/ to /Brown Nee ??/. When I eventually discover her birth name was Green, I then use Anne /Green/.

I initially used the form Anne /Nee ??/, but quickly realised it gave me no clue when looking at my list of relatives, which was the one who married John Smith, as there were too many Ann /Nee ??/‘s, so identifying the correct one became a problem.

When it came to records that used her married name, such as Probate Index entry, I use the form Anne Smith Nee Green for naming media files, so I know to look for Smith in the image rather than Green.

One thing I advice against, especially for beginners, is using her married name of Anne Smith, as this causes confusion for everyone, leaving them thinking that John Smith actually married someone called Anne Smith, and then wonder why they can’t find the relevant marriage.

NOTE using the //’s forces FH to keep it all as a surname, otherwise it would just use the last ??

I agree with Tamura Jones. If you don't know something, leave the field blank.

https://www.tamurajones.net/FNULNUMNUUNK.xhtml

I created a custom field in Family Historian that I call "Who". In this field, I write information that allows me to distinguish individuals from each other. (For men, it might be an occupation, because that's one of the things that we can use as an identifier, especially when doing research in cities. ) I put the information Gowermick described into this custom field, instead of entering it in the surname field.

I always use the maiden name for the reasons given above and I think this is critical. I do however add the married name(s) as alternative name(s). If I want to make it clear the name used for an event I include "as <married name>" in the note. Like many aspects of FH there is 'best practice' but you can choose to do whatever you want. However for critical aspects such name I would urge you to use the birth name as the primary name.

Whilst I agree with Tamara, that using Lnu, mnu etc may be wrong, as their meaning is not universally known, I think leaving the field blank is also wrong! It is far better to send a clear message to other genealogists, that says despite looking, I didn’t find anything to go in the field.

A positive/negative signal is alway better than no signal. We all know what Red/Green traffic lights mean, but what happens when the lights fail, and there is no light - chaos (some people interpret this as not Red, so its safe to proceed, whilst others interpret it as not Green, I’d better stop)

My use of ?? is an unambiguous way of saying I don’t know, and use it often for things like occupation or name.
Nee is a universal term used by everyone, not just genealogist, so using Nee ?? as a surname is unambiguous and its meaning clear, which is why I use it.

Gowermick wrote:We all know what Red/Green traffic lights mean, but what happens when the lights fail, and there is no light - chaos

In my experience failed traffic lights results in fewer queues, people slow down and take turns - that is of course in the absence of police or traffic officers trying to control things.

Back on subject, I always use the maiden name where I know it, or if I know the husband then I use /marriedname(SP)/ so at least in the records window they get sorted sensibly, plus it seems to help when using internet searches.

Of course the problem arises with census entries via AS, which records the woman with her maiden name rather than with her married name as it appears in the census. I then have to edit the text from source to correct it, so that it then isn't really text from source any more.

davidm_uk wrote:I then have to edit the text from source to correct it, so that it then isn't really text from source any more.

The Text From Source should be a transcript of the Census record, so should be the married name of the wife, not her maiden name. So you are correct to edit it, if necessary, so it is truly Text From Source.

With AS and census entries, if you have recorded a marriage event for a couple, then even with the woman on her her own, the auto text will show her MARRIED name.
If you have not recorded a marriage event, the the husband needs to be present for the autotext to show the married name

Thank you all for your advice and suggestions, I will read them all again and decide what the best approach is to take.

Kind regards

John

Gowermick wrote:My use of ?? is an unambiguous way of saying I don’t know, and use it often for things like occupation or name.
Nee is a universal term used by everyone, not just genealogist, so using Nee ?? as a surname is unambiguous and its meaning clear, which is why I use it.

Actually, it isn't unambiguous at all.

Nee (without the accent) is a surname. To me Nee ?? looks like the start of a surname which you haven't been able to transcribe properly.

I'm afraid I'm going to stick to my guns and stay with Tamura on this one.

However, if you *must* put something in the field, I think that the suggestion by Crista Cowan (the Ancestry genealogist behind the Barefoot Genealogist videos on Ancestry's YouTube channel) of using five underscores is better than what you're doing now. (Crista claims that it doesn't interfere with Ancestry's hint engine, for example.)

Nee has an accent If you use the French spelling, but it is perfectly acceptable and well understood in English without the accent!

If it confuses you, then don't use it, each to his own!

Back to the OP's original question; and as no-one appears to have mentioned it, there is a prepared Change of Name Fact set in the Knowledge Base see: fhugdownloads:contents:name_change_fact_set|> Fact Set ~ Name Changes which can be used and this reduces the amount of thought/effort needed in creating entirely new facts, although the usual warning applies that User Created Facts (even when fully GEDCOM compliant) may or may not transfer successfully between different genealogy applications.

As far as unknown surnames goes I am in the 'Smith née ?' camp, always with the accent; and never 'Nee' for the avoidance of confusion as née translates correctly as 'born' whereas Nee doesn't.

- ??? originally, I believe, recommended/promoted by Family Tree Maker 20+ years ago, to me is meaningless; and the surname might just as well be left completely blank.
- No surname means all these unknown surnames will be listed together at the beginning of the Name Index (as would ?/??/??? etc.) with no immediate view of who those people are associated with.
- née ?/Nee ? etc. would be all be indexed under N; and again no immediate indication of who they are attached to in a default index
- SMITH née ? etc. is indexed relatively close to the person they were first associated with in indicates the first known 'surname' of the person.

That still of course leaves some males with no known surname, but fortunately they tend to be much fewer in number.

Mervyn

mjashby wrote: - ??? originally, I believe, recommended/promoted by Family Tree Maker 20+ years ago, to me is meaningless; and the surname might just as well be left completely blank.
- No surname means all these unknown surnames will be listed together at the begging of the Name Index (as would ?/??/??? etc.) with no immediate view of who those people are associated with.
- née ?/Nee ? etc. would be all be indexed under N; and again no immediate indication of who they are attached to in a default index
- SMITH née ? etc. is indexed relatively close to the person they were first associated with in indicates the first known 'surname' of the person. Mervyn

Exactly the reasons I use this method, you summed it up nicely

I always use a person's birth name. If I have a female whose maiden name I can't find then I put their married surname in square brackets instead. e.g. [Smith]

I also have various name attributes (Married Name,Confirmation Name, etc) where I can record different uses of names and can attach sources, etc. I also have two additional name attributes to make a note of the different ways names have been recorded (Recorded As (Forename) and Recorded As (Surname)) - more to help me when researching and seeing what ways the surname, etc have been recorded in other documents.

As an aside I've found that if you choose 'None' from the 'Normal Time Frame' option in the Fact Definition dialog, then any narrative sentence will be placed after any dated facts or attributes - which has allowed me to have any Name attribute sentences at the end of a record in a Narrative report.