Where to enter titles such as military rank or a Doctor
I have had this question asked of me and I could not find an answer. Would you enter a military title in the TITLE area or under Notes or Other Information? The same question about a medical doctor, would it be in TITLE or Other information or as a Suffix?
Answers
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This Help Article may be useful.
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Thank you, but it really doesn't answer my question.
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@Debbie Crook, I usually put military ranks under, Other Information / +Add Event / Military Service / Description of Military Service rather than the Title field.
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Thank you for the information.
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You can also create an alternate name of type "Also Known As" and use the title field of the alternate name. Then it would appear like "Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur".
But names don't have dates associated with them, whereas events such as Military Service do, so there are some advantages to using @Chas Howell's suggestion to use Military Service. Then you could set the description to "Brigadier General" and set the date to be 1918-1925, then create another Military Service event with description "Major General" and set the date to be 1925-1930, etc.
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Debbie Crook Yes, the help article did answer your question. Retired military rank is a social title and can be entered in the Title field, although the correct titles are not always permitted because of a character restriction. I have a person who should have the title "COL (Ret)", as that is the correct format, but the "(" and ")" are not valid characters. I definitely put "Dr." in the title field of all my relatives who were either physicians or had obtained a PhD.
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I never add a title in my inputs to the Vitals fields. I either input the name there as their birth name, or one by which they were known from childhood, and/or through most of their adult life. Okay, a person might have been a "Dr." or a "Rev." through a good deal of their life, but certainly nobody would be born a doctor or vicar, so I would just treat this as an occupation. Some of my distant cousins disagree with my approach and have added a couple of our mutual relatives with a "Rev" prefix. I'm not saying I would attempt to change (delete) this, but it seems a bit like showing off to me to indicate any later "status" to family members, just because they qualified for a professional title later on in their lives.
Titles (as a prefix or suffix) are suitable for the nobility / royals who never held a convention first and last name, although even then it is often difficult to know how they should be identified on the Details page. For example, I can't think of anyone who was born a king, but find it common practice for profiles to be recorded in the name of "King Edward II" or "Henry VI", instead of the name / title held at birth or throughout most of there life - Charles III (not known as such until reaching his 70s) being a good example.
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I know there are many people who feel that titles (or suffixes) should only be used on the primary name if the person had that title (or suffix) at birth. That argument is certainly understandable, but I am not completely persuaded. The overarching purpose of the primary name is to accurately identify the person. Sometimes taking a purist view of using only birth names and associated titles does not best achieve that goal.
One data point that some may find helpful relates to people who have been marked read-only, and whose profiles are maintained by special teams at FamilySearch. I would assume that those teams have strong genealogical skills and understanding of FamilySearch policies and guidelines. Yet those teams have created profiles such as:
- President George Washington (KNDX-MKG)
- Joseph Smith Jr (KWJY-BPD)
- Joseph Smith Sr (KWJR-TC1)
There are many more such examples. Clearly George Washington was not born a president and Joseph Smith Sr was not born a Sr. But those titles and suffixes are useful in providing clarity -- clarity we would lose if we strictly allowed only birth names with titles and suffixes held at birth for the primary name for these people.
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Paul W You are correct, most, if not all, kings and queens who have that title in their record were NOT in that position at birth. My observation looking at historic English records is that many have the title entered that applied at the time of their death. Certainly I've noted that for almost all women who inherited a title through marriage. So I'm puzzled why you turn this into a "don't put title in the title field" argument for present day use.
It is perfectly correct, but optional, to put Dr., Rev, COL or any other title now in use in today's society in the TITLE field. If people were called this in the most informal of conversations during life, why is it "showing off" to include it in death as a part of their name, ie title field? In the religious setting, religious leaders are ALWAYS called "Father Bob" or "Reverand Smith". I can't say it would be mandatory to include those titles, but to say they should NOT be entered when a title field is clearly present seems strange.
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I think the discussion in Suggestions about nicknames (https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/151183/including-nick-names-in-the-person-record#latest) is somewhat relevant here, too: yes, you should use the birth name (and titles) in Vitals -- except when you shouldn't.
I understand Paul's point about the addition of occupational titles coming across as bragging; I kinda agree. Certainly, adding "Dr." or whatever to someone who only indifferently used it (as shown in, say, the baptismal records of his children) doesn't help any with identification, so I see little point to it. If, on the other hand, the title helps to disambiguate between multiple people with the same name, then I think it's fine to use it. It's nice to know at a glance that this profile is for President George Washington, not one of his (many) namesakes.
As I wrote on that other thread, I think it all comes down to the purpose: identification. The computer uses all of a profile's names equivalently, so the Vitals-versus-Other choice is only relevant to us users. The Vitals name should be whatever we find most useful for the purpose of identification. It helps to have certain conventions for this: maiden names rather than married (because everyone has a maiden/birth name), but full legal name rather than prior names or familial nicknames (because of recognizability). Yes, those conventions are contradictory. One has to make a choice.
The other communal tree I use (WikiTree) has a general mindset that practically worships the birth name. (Or sorry, the Last Name At Birth. Never mind that in the language of my family, it ain't last.) I think this leads to more problems than it solves, especially when there's any question about what the "name at birth" actually is, for example when working on people who didn't use surnames, or when a child was legitimized by a later marriage (rendering the name at birth into a legal fiction). Choosing a primary display name is always going to involve decisions, and people will always disagree about those decisions, no matter how mindlessly you constrain them.
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I think we need to compare this to hypothetically introducing your ancestor to a group of people. Would you take your ancestor aside ahead of time and say "I know you were Rev Smith to everyone who knew you, but I feel I would be bragging too much to say that, so I'm going to just introduce you as John Smith." If you would truly say that, then fine.
In my mind that conversation would never happen. I have too much respect for the accomplishments of others. Since the field of "Title" is there and NOT restricted, I use it. How do I know the field of "Title" is not restricted? The in the help article, the example of "Mister" as an appropriate title is given. Can you get more common?
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To make it clear, my views on including titles (or rather "not" doing so) in the Vitals section are purely personal. The fact that fields are available to add prefixes and suffixes indicates it is quite acceptable practice, if users wish to do so. As I have said, I would not delete these inputs and do see a positive reason in using them to distinguish from one individual (of the same name) from another. I believe Alan's "President George Washington" is a good example here.
Julia is right to connect this issue with the recent "nickname" thread, as both concern ideas about the formats of the names we enter into the Vitals section.
To give three different examples:
(1) I always assume it is an American user that has entered William Brown I, William Brown II and William Brown III against three successive generations of "William Browns". This format would be rarely used on this side of the pond and would certainly never have been used concerning the examples I see it applied to - viz. 16th / 17th century English families. I admit I have removed these suffixes in the past, but have now come around to Gail's idea of not changing the inputs of other users, unless a clear error has been made.
(2) An entry of something like "Mary 'Polly' Smith" I admit I do find hard to swallow. My paternal grandmother was named Mary, but generally called "Polly" by her siblings and friends. However, I believe adding a name in this format does not help in finding search results, due to the "search" algorithm used by "FamilySearch". (Best to use "Mary Smith" in the Vitals and "Polly Smith" as an Alternate Name - vice versa, if that is preferred.)
(3) More to the point of what this thread is directly about (titles), I believe a title can actually cause a misunderstanding. Rightly or wrongly, "Dr / Doctor" is still thought of by a good deal of the population as relating to a medical title. However, it would be perfectly correct to use this as a title for someone with a doctorate relating to another field. However, just as most of us "subordinates" thought it was a little pompous of our old boss to call himself "Dr Charles White" (made-up name, not story) when he was actually a soil scientist. Most individuals I have encountered with a similar qualification actually prefer to be known (formally) as "Charles White PhD". (Not that I am suggesting that suffix would necessarily be added in "Vitals", in place of a "Dr" prefix / title.
I must stress these are my personal opinions and am not being so dogmatic as to suggest everyone should drop the practice of adding a title - this should definitely remain our choice. I do intend to follow Gail's practice of not unnecessarily changing other users' inputs, but we must accept the "open-edit nature" of Family Tree (which many of us are at pains to stress) means that titles are open to be removed, just as suffixes and nicknames are likely to be amended - possibly by someone even more pedantic in their approach (to name formats) than me!
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In Hungarian usage, "Dr." is more often a lawyer than a physician -- but I think the American usage is changing, too: about a third of my middle-schooler's teachers use "Dr." instead of "Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss". Which just underlines the need to think carefully about adding titles to a profile: the information that you're trying to convey may not be the conclusion that other users will draw from it.
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" ... However, just as most of us "subordinates" thought it was a little pompous of our old boss to call himself "Dr Charles White" (made-up name, not story) when he was actually a soil scientist. ... "
Little to do with genealogy but actually the assumption that PhDs are getting a bit above themselves by referring to themselves as "Doctor" is actually the wrong way round. The title "Doctor" was given from medieval(?) times onwards for people who had studied for longer than usual - eg PhDs. It was then given to medics as a token of respect even though they hadn't earned it by the measure of time spent or level of degree attained. (See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5973890/ e.g.)
As for the main topic, I confess I tend to often put such Titles and Suffixes (Suffices?) into the Primary Name simply as a navigation aid. If you don't, I believe that it gets particularly problematic with those Royals who don't have surnames. (Or indeed with the long string of Robert Bruces - King Robert I was actually Robert Bruce the 7th (IIRC). )
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