Why does search for female family members who are married only seek maiden names?
Often i research female and because i add her maiden name, her married name seems to be excluded from search and her gender being female is mingled in male name options. If i specifically place her married name i get the results that would expect after her husbands name has already been established in search options. Yet those records do not show up as possibilities. Difficult when trying search for marriage records, birth records, and death records. I wonder is there an easier way to combine the females names to that the search engine sees both last names as relevant to search along with first name?
Answers
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@frankthomasvargo1 Hi, if you are using the search option and searching historical records, then select the more options and add other information such as spouse's name. Then your search will include both names.
If you are searching from the person page, you can add the person's married name in other information under alternate names and the search will include the married name.
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Have you added the married name as an alternate so that the system knows to search for it?
When I do that, 6 out of 7 results are all for that person:
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Keep in mind that the American/English practice of women switching families on marriage is very far from universal. Before the 1970s in Hungary, for example, married names were an all-or-nothing deal: if Mary Jones married John Smith, she either stayed Mary Jones, or became Mrs. John Smith. She did not become Mary Smith; on an official document, that would have been definitionally a different woman. (The set of official choices was broadened in I think 1974 to include the "Mary Smith" possibility.)
As Wayland and Áine explained, you can enter married names as alternate search terms and alternate names, and you can search using a spouse's name. I, for one, appreciate greatly that FS doesn't make unwarranted assumptions and show me dozens of results for a different woman (the way Ancestry does).
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