unnamed boy or girl baby stillborn

jennisejoneslarsen1

what do you enter for "Name" of a baby boy or girl that was not named when born in the detail page. I have the dates when born and died but child was not named.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

This Help Article outlines the procedure: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/enter-a-person-with-an-unknown-name

Re Searching

The instructions state that you should "Select the sex if known", yet the system tells you that it is Required. There are cases where the child is simply recorded as infant or stillborn child of Abraham Brown, in which case the gender cannot be known, so the system requirement is not reasonable.

My own view is that the person record should present as much information as can be ascertained, so for example if the records show that the child was an infant girl, then using that as the first names would be helpful. It also reflects what is shown on headstones in many cases.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@Re Searching, there is not actually such a system requirement, because the "add person" processes include the choice of "unknown" for the sex. Choosing that will allow you to save the profile, although things like "add spouse" will be disabled on it.

I disagree about adding a non-name to a name field. If a record says "infant girl", then choosing Female for the sex and adding the death year as the birth year will exactly capture all of that information, without mislabeling any data.

Re Searching

@Julia Szent-Györgyi Sorry, I should have been more specific,

The Research Help insists :

"Male or Female Is Required

Male or female must be specified"

Gordon Collett

That particular Research Help is badly worded. It should say:

"Male or Female is missing - Male or Female should be entered if known."

or

"Male or Female Is Required for Temple Ordinances - Male or Female must be specified for temple ordinances."

Just stating it is required on the profile is incorrect since it is not, as Julia pointed out, actually required.

And it should be dismissible since there are cases where the data is not and never will be available.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I think that that data problem should be removed entirely: it's not actually a problem unless you're LDS. Surely there is some other place for messages about things that only affect Temple matters.