Family Historian User Group

Hi Forum
I need some guidance please. Would you consider and set up a married female to have maiden name as primary name and married names as Alternate Names? Then cite sources accordingly againt each Alternate name? I'm wondering how pendantic I should be in using Alternate Names and citing appropriate sources supporting that name.

Eg
Ada May Lewis (Birth and First Marriage)
Ada May Murnan (Second Marriage)
Ada May Leonard (Third Marriage)
Ada May Leonard (Death)

Many thanks.

There is background advice in how_to:handle_people_with_multiple_names|> How to Handle People With Multiple Names.
It is quite popular not to record the married name of women.
From most dialogues, it is fairly easy to see their married surname, as their spouse is shown alongside in the Focus Window and in Diagrams and Reports, or in the Spouse tab of the Property Box.

Also in the Records Window, the Filter for Last Name searches can Include Husband's Surnames.
Use the Options... button to set that option as it is disabled by default.

Thank you Mike. I was hoping you would say that as trying to keep a handle on all possible surname changes would be difficult. It was the marriage and death that made me think what do others do and what is best practice.

The one occasion that I do record married names as alternate names is when the lady has been married two or more times. I discovered this when pulling off a diagram for one of my Pickstock ancestor couples. The diagram showed his name (fairly distinctive of course) and her primary name only. This confused me because her name on marriage to Mr Pickstock was itself quite distinctive and so had stuck in my mind - yet the diagram seemed to show another person entirely. It took me some time to dig around and realise that this was her second marriage.

Since then, I have tried to record the first married name (at least) as an alternate name and adjusted my diagrams to show primary and alternates names.

The alternate names, of course(?), have source cited against them.

Another reason to include married names as alternates, is in the USA, when the woman floats her original family name down to a middle name, sometimes displacing one of her original names in the process. This does not always happen to pattern - one distant cousin so-many times removed must have had a particularly ill-tempered divorce as her first married name disappeared entirely from her subsequent names, which doesn't always happen.

Apologies for the late reply Adrian. Yes the example you quoted (married two or more times) is the reason why I raised the question. I'm trying a new approach to very strictly cite sources and names feature strongly in that new approach.

Fortunately, I don't have that many instances of this, so not a major task to handle.

I did have a marriage certificate with an Edith Elizabeth Jane Clifton 'otherwise' Gilbert mentioned. It looks like a illegitimate birth, but she maybe had some idea who the father might have been.

Thank You.