A problem with an individual's names...

duncan_a · Post by **duncan_a** » 14 Jan 2006 17:11

Hi All

Hoping somebody can help me with this...

At the time John Henry was born his mother (Ruth Edith Wood)was unmarried. He was registered as John Henry Spreadbury Wood, clearly indicating that John Spreadbury was the father although no father was given on the birth certificate.
His mother married John Spreadbury seven months after the birth, on the twelfth of August 1920, thereby legitemising the Spreadbury name and the Wood was then, conveniently, dropped...

Should he appear in the family history as a Wood or a Spreadbury?

Logic says that he should be in as Wood, as that is the name on his birth certificate... This is how I have him at the moment with 'John Henry Spreadbury' in the 'Name Used' field of the Detail tab...

The problem is going to come when I need to add some subsequent events to him - He was using Spreadbury for everything but will appear as Wood (if anyone's still following this) - i.e. A subsequent marriage certificate will be for John Henry Spreadbury and Bertha Tanka (or whatever) but will have to be attached to John Henry Wood and any offspring would show as Wood - thereby making the tree a nonsense...

I could put him in as a Spreadbury, which overcomes the issues of his events after his parent's marriage, with John Henry Wood in the 'Name Used' field of the Detail tab but, of course, that wasn't the name he used...

This problem must also occur with name changes following adoption or deed polls...

Anybody got any ideas or suggestions???

ID:1289

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 14 Jan 2006 23:36

Don't forget you can add as many names as required to any person in your file. Simply remember to source each one. The sequence they exist in the record controls which shows in the Records window.

In this case I would probably add the 'most' common name as the first name field linked to a marriage certificate and the original name as the second, linked to the birth certificate, with the note on the common name with the details you have posted here.

duncan_a · Post by **duncan_a** » 15 Jan 2006 11:51

Brilliant!!!

Thanks Jane...

I must admit to still being a bit confused with sources, despite reading the manual. In the software I used to use, the source as 'GRO Birth Cert' and I then had a 'pointer' to that source with the GRO reference and I could attach the scanned image to the pointer (if that makes sense). I haven't sussed how to do that in FH yet - I end up creating a burgeoning list of sources - birth cert of x, birth cert of y, etc. Am I misunderstanding something?

Duncan

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 15 Jan 2006 16:22

Take a look at the Links/How To/ adding data from a birth certificate to see my prefered method.

duncan_a · Post by **duncan_a** » 15 Jan 2006 20:30

Thanks Jane - you really are a treasure.

I ran through the 'how to' and that makes things a bit clearer. Part way through it you mention 'using a single source for all birth certificates'which is how I am intending to do it. Can I add a multi-media object to a citation somehow? i.e. the scan of the certificate to those citations that reference it? or do I have to link it to the individuals as a multi-media object?

I can see that the process is easier to accomplish by having a source for each birth, each marriage, etc. but it is going to mean a lot of work to rejig the file that I imported when I switched software - I'm glad I did though!!

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 02 Feb 2006 10:58

You can add a multimedia to a citation or to a source. I think the source per cert is the best way, as the citation object has to be added to the event.

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