Dealing with ? names etc
Hi. I was looking for confirmation that I am going about this the right way before I teach others bad habits 
I have an ancestor who started having children (as far as they were found by FamilySearch) in 1682. None of the entries had the mother's names and ended up in individual records where the father's name was shown and the mother was called ?. Then in 1690 and 1693 there were 2 more children born where a mother was shown. This is all happening in a village where many of my ancestors come from. So I am certain these are the same family. Hence what I have done first is I renamed one of the ? to the surname of the husband, leaving the Christian name blank. Then I merged all the ? entries as they had a) no sources and b) nothing apart from the husband's name to identify them. So now I have four children with the father's name and the mother simply called by his surname (also the children's surnames of course) and I have 2 children under the same father with a real mother. I am now not sure if I should be game enough to merge the nameless woman with the one that is named, assuming that some local rule changed which gave people the need to mention the mother's name on entries (Church records) or I leave them separate on the assumption that the first wife died and he married another time a year or so later. In that part of Germany death records are very rare as far as digital versions so I would not be able to confirm unless I visited the place and that may not happen in my lifetime. Depends on a lot of factors. Hence I just wanted to know if this approach is ok as I am sure this is not the only case I will encounter. I train others in our Ward and don't want to pass on bad habits, as already stated above. Thanks for any advice.
Answers
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@IngeAnnaDanaher IngeAnnaDanaher
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Inge
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Just my thoughts ...
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Where the Name; especially, the 'Family Name'/'Surname', of a Spouse/Wife is NOT KNOWN (ie. "Blank"; or, "Unknown"; or, "?"), it is best NOT to (in fact, NEVER) make/change the 'Family Name'/'Surname' that of the Spouse/Husband, even leaving the 'Given'/'Christian' names "Blank"; and, especially, adding the 'Title' of "Mrs".
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If the 'Family Name'/'Surname' of a Spouse/Wife is NOT KNOWN (ie. "Blank"; or, "Unknown"; or, "?"); then, just leave it as that.
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Whereas, in your case, you would have been better leaving the Spouses/Wives with the name of "?" as just that (as is); and, "Merging"/"Combining" those with the name of "?" - IF; and, ONLY if, you, had evidence; or, were certain beyond reasonable doubt, that they were the same individual/person.
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When in doubt (ie. WITHOUT supporting 'Evidence'), DO NOT "Merge"/"Combine".
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Again, just my thoughts.
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Brett
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ps:
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Some Users/Patrons actually "Delete"(ie. "Remove") such Names where ONLY the 'Family Name'/'Surname' of a Spouse/Husband and the 'Title' of "Mrs" (ie. No 'Given'/'Christian' is included - whether, Female; or, Male).
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And, that often also includes such Names EVEN when there is 'Given'/'Christian' is included - whether, Female; or, Male where the 'Family Name'/'Surname' is that of a Spouse/Husband and the 'Title' of "Mrs". In such cases, most just leave the 'Given'/'Christian' where it appears as Female; but, as totally "Blank", if the 'Given'/'Christian' is NOT Female.
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In my example there were 4 children with entries obviously in some church record for a very small village. I know the place as many of my ancestors come from there. The digitising created 4 new families with identical fathers and for some reason mothers Christian names were set to ? and surname blank. Usually the mothers name is also known in which case the 4 sets of parents are then merged to create one family. If I would have left the ? mark names it would have created a father with 4 wives with different IDs all called ? and each child with a separate ? Mother when it was obvious given the place and parish and dates all matched them as one family. I have seen many examples in the global tree with mothers simply called by the surname of the husband and I read not to use ? mark as the name. Soi figured this was a safer way to sort out this mess. We are talking about church books that had the habit for many years of not mentioning the name of the mother. Weird as it may sound. I still feel the mothers deserve some kind of name
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This article may be helpful It was found by searching for "Question Mark" in the Help Center.
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@IngeAnnaDanaher IngeAnnaDanaher I concur with what @Brett . recommended, particularly after seeing the article supplied by @ME Doran. If FamilySearch chose to use the "?" place holder for the name rather than leave it blank, they had a good reason for doing so, and it should be left that way unless/until you can find the real given name for the women. And I would not use the husband's surname for the no-name wives, unless the given name was entered as "Mrs." Otherwise, you run the very real risk of someone else assuming that these women just happened to be born with the same surname as their eventual spouse. The genealogical convention is to always list women by their original birth name, not the name of their husband. It could lead to others making invalid assumptions and introducing even further errors into a family lineage.
As for merging - I strongly agree with Brett that you ONLY merge "IF; and, ONLY if, you, had evidence; or, were certain beyond reasonable doubt, that they were the same individual/person," as he stated.
I concur with your sentiment that these were real people, and deserve to be followed by their names - but until you've got some solid reason for assigning them a name, it's best to leave them as they were. In time (or beyond) that will all be worked out.
--Chris
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@IngeAnnaDanaher IngeAnnaDanaher Inside, I'm aching a bit for you - your caring about these people really comes through loud and clear - and they know it! Just remember that. HOWEVER ---
I think I may have just found a solution for you. Look at the following article:
I'm glad this question is in the Consultants' group so we can talk more comfortably about temple ordinances that could become misunderstood or uncomfortable for those not members of the Church. I got to thinking about all the times that we did ordinances for "Mr. So-and-so" or "Mrs. So-and-so" in the temple (I served as a veil or ordinance worker for over 30 years, so I can assure you that's not at all uncommon). That caused me to go research the use of the titles "Mr." and "Mrs." That article above has your answer that will allow you to at least legitimately accomplish their ordinances for them! Look at the first set of examples (Table 1) on the 2nd line. That's your answer, I believe. Use the title "Mrs." and then the given and surname of her husband if you feel good about calling that a marriage union, and you're fully compliant with temple standards for ordinances.
I can't believe that would violate the otherwise good intent of the use of the "?" per the other article. They "?" works for those that are using FamilySearch as the great genealogical database that it is, and the "Mr./Mrs." serves the additional purpose of allowing completion of temple ordinances for those of us that also wish to use FamilySearch for that purpose. They both serve a purpose, but the ultimate goal for us as members is to provide the ordinances for our very real ancestors, and this takes care of NOT presuming they were all the same person in case they really weren't (I've got more than one of those in my own German ancestry where there were multiple wives that only lived a short time after beginning to have children). All of the "Mrs." mothers could be the same person OR different people with the "Mrs. [Husband's Names] entries
You might want to call your temple (I'd talk to a member of the presidency or the recorder) once it's back open and ask if there will be any problem with having each of the "Mrs." women sealed to their husband separately, and the respective children sealed to their parents, even if they all turn out to be the same woman. That way, if the temple says that's OK, technically you're merely duplicating ordinances IF it turns out eventually to be the same woman in all cases, but yet you're separately sealing individual women to their husband if they're not the same person. And the kids still get sealed to their parents, with name(s) to be filled in later once they become known. Just make sure you go back an undo all your changes to this point, and substitute the "Mrs. [Husband's given name] [Husband's surname]" in the three fields instead of the question marks. Then have a very special time at the temple as you do the ordinances for each of those special ladies and their children, even if they later turn out to be the same woman/mother - it'll still be done.
Does that make sense, and does it feel OK?
--Chris
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@Schmink Christopher Richard Bieneman
Thank you so much for the link and explanation. It definitely gives me options and I like the idea of Mrs and husbands first and last name at least it gives some kind of identity to the mother. If later I find wedding entries I can then fix as needed. In another line, my mother always told me that her grandmother grew up very poor and suffered under a stepmother. I was in the city they were all born in 2016 and was doing research at the Münster Bistumsarchive office. And there I discovered the full story. My great-great grandfather married a young woman in 1859 (he was young then) and they had 2 children a year apart. She died giving birth to the second infant. He then married my great-great grandmother who gave birth to my great grandmother and promptly died when she gave birth to my great grandmother. So my great great grandfather married again almost immediately upon the death of his wife and so this poor lady inherited 3 infants, went on to have 3 of her own before also passing on after the birth of the 3rd child. Now leaving 6 young children, 2 of them infants. His 4th wife was 44 on marriage and had no further children but I guess she had 6 to bring up anyway. I am not sure who of the 2 was the bad stepmother but my heart aches for the lot of them. The Husband who kept having to bury his wives and at least tried to do the right thing in finding them a new mother, the young women who were pregnant and raising other women's infants at the same time and my poor great-grandmother who suffered due to neglect from what I understand. Lucky for me, there were wedding, births and death notices also showing the cause of death in the church records, but you are right ... within a very short period this man had 4 wives and 3 of them bore him children. In this case it is obvious and I can seal them all knowing that they will all be happy in the eternities at the huge number of descendants that they will be joined with
Thanks everyone posting here for your help. I wanted to be comfortable before passing on "bad" habits to others 0
