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Is there a link where the guidelines for entering names, birth dates and location for people whose information is missing? For example, the husband is listed and there is a birth certificate for a child that shows location and date of the child's birth. There is no sources for the parents other than the father's first and last name. Do we leave information blank? I read in Family Search that you can put in about dates (25 years for husband and 21 for wife), but I was wondering what the standard is. I have looked around the help options and used Google for search. I just wanted to know where to find this information so I can correctly input information.
Hi there GennieKirch
Please check this article out:
It is found in the help center by Typing in the following: How to Enter names into FamilyTree
Also use the word about for dates as you mentioned. Eg: about 1837
If a woman was not named in the record then it is perfectly fine to use the husbands name EG: Mrs John Smith, if the woman was only found by her first name with no last name recorded then just use her first name and leave the last name blank.
If a child was not named then just use the name of the father and leave the first name blank.
We hope that has been helpful for you.
People have wildly divergent beliefs about names in genealogy, and FamilySearch deals with it all by simply not issuing rules, only guidelines, and only fuzzy ones at that.
The only rule that FS enforces is that you can't leave both name fields blank in the Vitals box. At least one of them needs to have something in it. Paired with the guideline, currently phrased as "Enter birth or maiden name", this leads to the general idea that if you only know the husband's name, you shouldn't even create a profile for the wife. This is my practice. However, I'm not LDS, so "Temple work" doesn't enter the equation for me.
Faced with an already-created profile for which I don't know any part of the birth name, my non-LDS solution would be to enter a question mark in one of the Vitals name fields, and then enter the married name as an alternate name under Other Information. I have no idea whether that would work for your purposes, but it seems to be the best representation of what's known.
All that said, there isn't actually a rule against entering "Mrs. So-and-So" as the Vitals name, if that's all you know about her. Unfortunately, it's hard to point this out to a fellow user, as it's rather close to trying to prove a negative: FS never comes out and says that you can, they just never say that you can't. You'd be getting into arguments about what's a rule and what's just a guideline, and it would not be pretty, because obviously this other user you're dealing with has strong beliefs about the "force" of the birth-or-maiden guideline.
I think a first step could be to contact the other user to compare goals: are you both LDS? Is there a compromise that will allow you to proceed with your goal of "Temple work", while still following the other person's desire for no married names in Vitals?
I appreciate your answer. I did look up the information at the help center. The reason this came up is because of a record which is "unknown" 48HC-88K. I had followed the procedure above and named her Mrs. John Lee. Then a person changed it to unknown again and put this under the name area of the record. "Please do not put married names here!"
I had checked with resource people in my stake and ward and follow the information you sent about naming an unnamed wife. So I don't know quite what to do. I was hoping to do the Temple work for this family, but this person does not want the "unknown" changed. That is why I asked for the rules so possible I could email him, but the page listed above does not cover a wife that is not named.
Thank you for listening. I will continue to work on this.
I thank you for your comments. I appreciate all the information. I keep a file of names that I will return to work on at another time; so I will put this record in there. My answer to this situation is to leave it alone as it does not bother me. I was just trying to follow correct procedure and now I know the sides of the issue. So for me, I am happy to just leave this record the way it is. Hopefully source material would be found at some point to add a name to this person. Thank you again for your help. Have a wonderful day.
