What is a child's correct name

JohnBromby

Hello I sort of asked this question a way back in 2021 but that was related to the last name being that of the child's parents.

Slightly different now, and in two parts: Stephen Gemmell LKY4-MNC is my great grand father via the maternal side and in my mother's genealogy notes he is referred to as Stephen Howard Gemmell (the Howard being a nod to his mother - infact my grand mother G36D-8SK also carried that middle name). However, his birth register (uploaded into memories) only states Stephen Gemmell. The marriage register gives Howard. The census either mentions just Stephen, or Stephen H. His grave stone equally carries Howard.

For his vitals I've used his name Stephen Gemmell and under alternate name put in Stephen Howard - each time giving an explanation.

The second part of the question is the spelling of his family name which depending on which document one refers to is: Gammall (birth registry), Gemmell (marriage and death), and the census' Gemmel or Gemmell. I'm certain it's all one of the same person - after checking dates, ages, locations, names of parents etc. So if the answer to the part is the name on the birth register, then the vitals should also read Gammall. If that is the case how does one ensure that the tree doesn't create a different person.

BTW, and not yet uploaded to the tree, his father G36D-8SK apparently had a second son Robert whose birth I finally tracked down as being spelt Gamble.

I've learnt that all these names are Irish in origin.

Your answers and comments will be of great interest as I'm going to have the same issues with his wife Gardner, Gardiner etc.

Regards

JOhnBromby

Paul W

I don't think there are any fixed rules here. Some users stick to always using the birth name as the primary one, but I am inclined to use the name an individual (well, certainly a male one) used throughout their life.

Even that proved difficult to apply in one case - an ancestor who was illegitimate and (judging by his census records) seems to have alternated in using his mother's maiden name and that of his stepfather, even through adulthood.

Providing you input the "other" variations as Alternate Names, you and others will be able to locate the individual using both the FIND function or in a general search of the records database. With the latter, I often find it better in getting results by searching on the names individually (i.e., I delete the second / third names, search on the primary one, then search on the other variants one by one).

Some users might advise not bothering with slight variations on a name, but occasionally this will fail to produce results. In your example, I would search on Stephen* (First Names) and G*mm*l* (Last Name), which (even using an "Exact" search) should produce fairly comprehensive results (given that I would also search for one Event at a time, too (e.g., Birth, Death, Marriage, Census, Immigration, etc.).

Alan E. Brown

Personally, I wouldn't draw the conclusion that you should put so much weight on one birth registration record. The guidelines say that you should use the person's birth name or legal name. Although that birth registration record gives a clue about the birth name, I would never trust a single source record to the exclusion of all other data.

All records are subject to a variety of errors: the person supplying the information, the person recording the information, the indexing of the information, communication errors at each step, and several other possibilities.

You don't need to have any concerns about a name change affecting source tagging — those links are based on the internal ID for a person, and this are independent of any associated names. Memory tags can be trickier, and I don't want to derail this discussion with those details, but suffice it to say that a name change won't break any of those links either, although a name change might not affect the display of a memory tag as you might hope.

If the preponderance of evidence is that the surname is spelled Gemmell, then I would use that spelling for the primary name. The fact that there happens to be a record that spells it Gammall — even though that happens to be the only actual birth record — doesn't carry enough weight for me to use that spelling.

Those are my thoughts, but of course it's your family, and you should consider all the information and do what you think is best.

ColinCameron

Regarding the surname variations, are you looking at original documents or at indexes and transcriptions? It's easy to mis-transcribe or index an 'a' as an 'e', or 'mm' as 'm'.

JohnBromby

Hello Coin very valid question. I use Scotlands People site to find the relevant documents - birth, marriage, death, census - and in all cases I obtain a digital copy of the actual document (my wallet has groaned somewhat). The use of a single 'l' or double 'll' is easy to spot; 'a' or 'e' can sometimes be more difficult to ascertain. In all cases, I've started with my grand-mother and slowly worked up through the ages making sure that successive names, places, dates all match up.

Your question is very valid as Stephen Gemmell LKY4-MNC in question had an elder brother which to begin with I just couldn't find despite having names, dates and place of birth. The brother's name was Robert. In the end I searched just using the forename, a year +/-1, and birth place and found the birth register. In this instance the name had been indexed as Gamble with the actual register giving Gemmel plus all the other data which coincided.

Some of these documents are inFS data base but in most cases I prefer to see the raw data so to speak.

Regards, JohnBromby

JohnBromby

Thank you Paul W for your detailed reply. I totally agree with your method of searching as I've had to do this for certain people by using multiple variations of the name, year spans etc. Can be quite involved but in most cases pays off as I eventually find the the information.

And yes the use of alternative names is important and I certainly will be doing this. I'll also try to put in as much reasoned explanations as possible.

Knowing that as one goes back in time hand written documents can be a challenge to read and name spellings often change slightly; surprising that FS doesn't provide guide lines on this (or rather not that I've seen, or maybe not looked in the right place).

Regards JohnBromby

Alan E. Brown

The guidance is here: How do I enter names in Family Tree?

JohnBromby

Thank you Alan for that direction.

What I’ve taken away from all this is that a person’s name should be as per the birth registration. All other spelling variations to be included in the alternate names section.

In my particular case for Stephen Gemmell LKY4-MNC there are several spelling variations, plus the exclusion and inclusion of a second forename (Howard). As you will see under that person's details I've used what I consider to be the more consistent spelling of the family name - Gemmell. However, if I now faithfully follow the birth registration's spelling of Gammall how will this affect all the tagging that I've done with the memories and sources (all tagged to Stephen Gemmell LKY4-MNC). I bulk at the idea of having to retag all these sources.

The birth registration was only found after a lengthy trail and error research with Scotlands People and this after I had already inputted Stephen as Gemmell in the tree.

I've tried to provide explanations under the section Names, and Alternative Names.

Any comments / advice ??

Regards

JohnBromby

@Paul W and @Alan E. Brown thank you for your replies I'm going to bring up elsewhere a related subject of what happens when you merge persons.