Family Historian User Group

Hi everyone, and seasons greetings to all.

Ever since I started researching my family history, over 50 years ago, I was a mere 15 year old lad who was given a huge leather bound family bible by my maternal grandparents. (I still have said bible). I adopted a process of recording unknown people that my grandparents had used.
If it was an illegitimate child, the father would be recorded as UNKNOWN, Unknown or MALE, Unknown.
If it was a union that one partner could not be found, usually due to not being able to locate a marriage, it would normally be the mother that was unknown, so she would be recorded as FEMALE, Unknown or again as UNKNOWN, Unknown, or, if census entries were available it would be UNKNOWN, Ann etc.

I am just working through a few of my unknown females, made easier by the fact the GRO Index search now lists mothers maiden name, this makes it much easier to locate the correct marriage. in some cases, when their children were born over a long span, you can locate the last one born to give maiden name and this lets you find the details of a marriage that took place at the beginning of the 19th century. This has certainly opened up new lines.

I would be very interested to hear how others do it.

There have been many postings on this over the years.

What many do is incorporate the surname of the spouse/partner such as MUNRO?, Unknown
Then in Individual name lists, they appear near their spouse/partner instead of all lumped under UNKNOWN.

Alternatively (sic), the surname MUNRO can be added to the Alternate Names list and then when using the Records Window filter or Edit > Find > Names they will be included in the results.

If I don't know the surname I simply write //(anybody) for the female.
For the male if it is the father of a child I just put //anybody

Victor

If the person is completely unknown (e.g. the father for a birth out of wedlock where no name is given on registration or baptism and there is no circumstantial evidence to assign a father) I just leave it blank.

If it is a woman of unknown birth name (e.g. I have not yet located a couple's marriage and her maiden name is not given in any records) I record her married surname in parentheses with an underscore to make it clear it is not her "real" name, but reminds me where she fits and avoids the problem of having many duplicate names, often with no associated dates either. For example, Mary (_Smith).

Occasionally, I come across an un-named birth registration, so I record it as (Male) Smith.

Whereas I leave the name totally blank and they show up as [unnamed person] in the record list and focus window. The context identifies them on the focus window; I have the record list configured to show the life dates, spouse and parents of every individual to give the same context.

For married women whose maiden name I don't know I leave the surname blank. The context as described above identifies which Mary // it is.

If you put Mary// you won't know who it it is linked to especially if there are more than one Mary. Putting her hosbands surname in brackets will help here.
Victor

My personal preference for recording unknown surnames of female spouses (spice? ) is to use the form Mary /Smith Nee ??/. This ensure that I can differentiate between all the Mary’s whose surnames I don’t know, when looking at the records list. Pedants among you will need to accept I have omitted the accents to the e’s in Nee for simplicity, You and I know what I mean

I sometimes use this when I’m not sure if the bride was a spinster or widow at marriage (i.e. I only have GRO reference as source of marriage, and no subsequent children to help identify mother’s maiden name), this prevents me assuming her married name was also her maiden name!

For illegitimate children, I attach them directly to the mother without a fathers record being created!

If you put Mary// you won't know who it it is linked to especially if there are more than one Mary.

As I said, I can see from the context in the Focus window or the columns in the Record window which Mary // it is.

If you regularly export your data to another product and view it there (as I do to Ancestry via RootsMagic), a system for a synthetic surname makes life easier, rather than relying on FH-specific display features that another product won’t have.

Thank you all for your input, It seems that most people adopt very similar methods. I may just review the method I use as I do not like the use of UNKNOWN.

Have a great Christmas if you can, stay safe, eat drink and be merry!

Just out of interest I used to use Unknown but I have switched to _____ (5 underscores). I don't think there is a perfect answer, do what suits you best and be consistent.

I leave my Unknown People blank. My Records Window is customised so that I can easily identify who they are.

As was said earlier, leaving names blank or unknown can work with appropriate FH tools but may not be so good when exported to other products.

I know I've come into this late, but in my tree (which is still quite small in comparison to others in this forum), the only people I have without a 'known' surname are usually female spouses, in which case I put the husband's surname in square brackets (e.g. [Smith]). Works for me.

I have decided to use the following methods after much thought.

For Illegitimate children for whom I do not know the father, I will enter "Unknown MALE" with MALE as the surname and Unknown as the first name. That has not changed from the way I have always done it.

For a family where I cannot find a marriage, and where for instance a baptism says "son of Thomas & Ann Pacey" I will enter the wife as Ann PACEY_? until such time as I can find a marriage.

That will reduce quite a few of my unknowns