If a person changed their name during their life, should I post his original name FamilySearch
If a person changed their name during their life, should I post his original name in FamilySearch (especially if his father carried their original surname) or use the name he had most of his life?
Answers
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It is really your choice. I prefer to use the name a (male) person was known by for most of their life, especially as this will generally make their records easier to find. However, for females it would usually be the case that her maiden name is inputted as the primary one - except perhaps where she is known by another name (e.g. that of a step / adoptive father) from infancy until her marriage.
Regardless, always add married names (for females), or any other name that was used during their lifetime, as an Alternate Name (added under the Other Information section of Family Tree), where the categories / headings listed are: Also Known As, Birth Name, Married Name and Nickname.
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Thanks so much!
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Like Paul, I generally go for the new name in Vitals for deliberate name changes (which are usually men) but the maiden/birth name otherwise, with the other name(s) in the Other Information section. Of course, illegitimacy can complicate even this rule of thumb: last night I ended up using a woman's technically-adoptive father's new surname as her Vitals name, with his original surname and her mother's surname as alternate names under Other. (Her marriage record identifies her as Frits Ilka /: filia adoptiva Flegel hungarisata Ildényi :/ filia illegitima Annae Frits "Ilka Frits /adopted daughter of Flegel Hungarianized Ildényi/ illegitimate daughter of Anna Frits". [I had to consult the name-changes book to find out the father's given name of János.])
One of the beauties of FamilySearch's Family Tree is that you're free to make whatever choice you deem best for each specific circumstance and person. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only guidelines — and there's room for all of the data that you find. People can all have as many names, parents, spouses, and residences as they had in life.
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The more sources you find and add, the more complete or more common spelling emerges. As others have stated; The individual's preferred name will become evident - and I like using that as the primary listed name. The search engine will pick up the other names you enter in under "alternate names"; and use these as well in finding/suggesting new sources.
Pet Peeve: using Mr & Mrs in the titles field or first name field. This is not necessary in Genealogy.
Tip-o-the-day: I input a lower case married name in the wife's surname field if the maiden name is not known. (lower case to remind me of the distinction.) This helps the search engine {FamilySearch & Ancestry} find appropriate records for the couple and finds death records that are often listed under her married name as well. * Yes, I correct this as soon as the maiden name is discovered.
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Re: @Jack Hern 's Tip-o-the-day, why not just record her married name in Other Information/ Add Alternate Name/ Married Name field rather than adding it in lower case in a field where it really should not be?
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One other thing, to make sure we're answering the right question…
If the person actually changed his or her name during his or her life (in childhood as part of adoption, or as an adult as part of converting to a religion or otherwise as a deliberate change), I would list the later name in the Name fields under the Vitals, and the earlier name as a Birth Name under Other Information. For example, one of my grandmothers (LNVJ-T1T) was listed with her mother's surname on her birth-certificate, but used her stepfather's surname as her "maiden" surname on her marriage-license to my grandfather.
On the other hand, sometimes a lot of sources only have parts of a person's name, but there's nothing to indicate that he or she actually changed it. For example, one of my wife's ancestors (MFNZ-B2M) was christened as "Juan Cristostomo Cirilo" (three given names), and referred to as "Juan Crisostomo" at his wedding and then his children's christenings and civil registrations for 19 years thereafter. Then in 1878, four years later, he was "Juan Rios"; then "Juan Crisostomo Rios"; then just "Juan Rios" for the rest of his life and on posthumous references in his children's and grandchildren's records. So I listed "Juan Crisostomo Cirilo Rios" as his name under Vitals, and several Alternate Names for the significant variations.
And sometimes I've found a child who has a civil birth registration, and a baptismal certificate, with differing names, neither a proper subset of the other; in such cases I might list all parts as the name under Vitals, using OR to split name components that only come from one side or the other. For example, I'm probably going to merge Silvina Viquez Cano (L1LM-WHR) and Maria Dolores del Corazon de Jesus Viquez (KNKS-HG7); when I do so, I'll probably give a name under Vitals of "Silvina OR María Dolores del Corazón de Jesús Víquez Cano", and two separate Birth Names under Other Information.
Which brings up one other situation: sometimes spelling-conventions changed during a person's life, or scribes were just sloppy and inconsistent. My wife has several ancestors whose name was written "Jph" or "Joph", which was extracted "Joseph", on all records before 1790. Then from 1790 to 1810, that same name was written "Josef"; and after 1810, "Jose" or "Josè". Today it would be written "José". Or she has another ancestor who was christened "Dorotheo de Jesus", but appears on many documents as "Doroteo de Jesus". I generally like to keep the baptismal name's spelling in such cases, but expanding scribal abbreviations ("Jᵉ" to "José", for example) and keeping any significant variations as Alternate Names.
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Legal name changes—
If a person legally changed his or her name, other than through marriage, enter the newer legal name
as found in the following from FamilySearch:
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