What does the name suffix "x" (lower case) mean?
I have hundreds of ancestors with names like "Sir John Bird x". Being lower case, it cannot mean "the tenth of that name" like "X" would.
Best Answers
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People do all sorts of things on FS that don’t make sense or follow the guidelines for entering names outlined in the help files. I had a whole bunch where somebody entered titles such as “5ggf” or in one case somebody entered the mother’s maiden name as the child’s middle name but in all lowercase. For scores of profiles. Took a lot of effort to clean up.
Looking at a few of your examples it appears these x’s were all entered by the same user. You could try contacting them and asking for a reason. Personally, I’d just delete them as they are unnecessary clutter, in my opinion. But leave a reason for the change citing the help article on how to enter names in family search, in hopes of educating other users.
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Since that suffix has been added by another contributor, I suggest you send that contributor a private message through the chat system. It is probably a notation to indicate something in his/her own research - confirmed, level of certainty, or something else.
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I found this webpage on a similar issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/8173n0/x_or_cross_under_baptism_record/?rdt=58100
My own thoughts relate to exactly where you are finding this occurrence. If it is just in baptism records, perhaps the "x" is even an abbreviation for "christened" - as in entries in old registers referring to "Xtopher" as an abbreviation for Christopher.
Obviously, I may be way off the mark, so advising of the nature of the documents in which you are finding this would be a great help. (Also, does the "x" always appear before a date?)
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Hundreds?
I've never seen an "x" after a name. The closest I get is the mark made by illiterate people in place of their signatures; usually, it's at the beginning of the signature line, and the clerk wrote the name after it, but sometimes, the mark is in the middle of the line, and the clerk fit the name on either side.
In church registers, where there are no signature lines, the cross (meaning "died") can sometimes look more like an "x" than a "+", but it's also generally before the name.
Any chance of some examples? (Preferably, links to the full documents rather than snippets.)
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To clarify, in response to the first two answers to my question, the "x" appears as the suffix of full names in profiles as they are presented on familysearch.org. I'm not referring to historical documents. I mentioned one of my ancestors "Sir John Bird x". Here is the link to his profile:
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LKVQ-CF1
This is a snapshot of the top of his profile:
This means that whomever created (or later edited this profile) either appended the "x" intentionally or copied it from an original source, which I would find hard to believe. In Sir John's case, I could not find the "x" in an original source.
In response to the "Hundreds?" question in the second answer, actually that is an exaggeration. I had done a quick count which included names properly ending in "x" such as "Cox" and got a list with over 300 names. At first glance it looked like most of them were as described above but actually the correct number is closer to 50. But then, I haven't gone very far back in history yet. Maybe there will be hundreds when I have done finished my family tree. Here are a few more links :
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/G31C-D8B
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/GP8R-C7R
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KV2H-P87
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/LYQS-BMH
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LVX3-SGC
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L1FK-1LF
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/GVMJ-PLKAs I said, I can produce about 50 of these right now. They all follow the same pattern and all of them were born before 1500.
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Thanks, I didn't even notice that the same contributor did this. I figured it must be some code that experienced researchers used.
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Thanks, I will follow through on this. I appreciate your help.
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@JohnBates1955 said "I figured it must be some code that experienced researchers used…"
Don't do yourself down. Sometimes people simply sound experienced when they're not. Truly experienced researchers don't use codes that aren't obvious. And truly experienced researchers record their sources as well. I looked at about 6 of the PIDs you listed and only 1 had any sources. Hmm
So where the bulk of the information that you have, comes from, I have no idea. That doesn't automatically mean it's rubbish, it just means I have no idea where it's come from. Doesn't do justice to those people.
I did take a quick look at my copy of Ormerod (my Cheshire ancestors aren't exalted enough to appear in it) to see if I could find your Sir John Bird but failed dismally.
You might get some clues about where the stuff came from by doing Google searches on couples' names. Otherwise, worst case scenario, you need to understand that various infamous conmen sold fake genealogies to gullible moneyed people. Caveat Emptor.
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My guess is that these "x" suffixes are being added by some user who doesn't understand the concept of a shared tree. They could be some personal research indicator, perhaps indicating that this user has done some research task, such as verifying relationships to the user or checking names against some reference book.
It's clearly a misuse of the shared tree, but until you can contact this user, simply fixing the suffixes might result in a frustrating "edit war" where that user continues with this misguided project as fast as you attempt to clean it up.
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Maybe, when you fix one, add an alert asking contributors not to edit the name unless backed up by solid sourcing.
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