Displaying 2 Legal Names - Merging Duplicates

LegacyUser

DENNIS CROAK said: My 2nd great grandmother changed her birth name AFTER being married, to sound "more Catholic". The choice was to convert from Lutheran to Catholic, marrying into a Catholic family. Now since this was done in the 1880's, records are a bit shaky...but it is proven through various records.

My concern is the duplication of records, for her and family she is associated with. Her birth name is Sophia Jones, she married (and known as) Sophia Croak and then changed to Mary. I would prefer that 1 record exist, with ability to see names and merge records. It's exhausting to update a record and have someone else make changes based on another name.

It's also frustrating to have only prominence of 1 name, even though you can add there are alternate names, maybe add below the record name a AKA. Lots of the pre WWI era records have "go by's" in legal records, alternate given names....all of which are helpful to research.

I am open to hearing ideas on how to solve this, my particular case my great-great grandmother went by: Sophia Jones, Sophia Croak, and Mary Croak.

LegacyUser

DENNIS CROAK said: And how many records should this be on this person??

How should it be decided which record is the record???

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Welcome to the FamilySearch public discussion boards. I'm sure you'll get a lot of different opinions from various users on this board. Here's my personal thoughts

Only one record in Family Tree should be present for her.

Regarding the name listed under Vitals, this is usually the name a person was given at birth but there are circumstances when a different name they used is more appropriate. The final decision is up to you.

All other names a person used should be listed as Alternates Names under the Other Information section. Keep in mind that when the Family Tree program routines for possible duplicates, hints, and finding the person run, they look at all the alternate name.

Be sure to put good explanations as to why each name is there in the reason statement for each name.

Then all we can do is hope that with time all users of Family Tree will learn and follow a very important principle: when evaluating a person for needed editing or merging, read the entire record first and look at every single bit of information on the person.

LegacyUser

Brian Eric Olsen said: Dennis as to the story of what happened with her name changed. You can create a story / history and place it in memories explaining how this all happened, with a good time line. Also I agree you should only have one record / person in family tree of her. If you are worried of other changing facts or attaching incorrect sources because of her names changes. You could put a short story out line in her life Sketch. Hopefully other will read it before changing or adding incorrect sources.

As for your question on records. I assuming you are saying record / source. You can put as many as you want or find. The sources with dates, places details that match who your relative is. When you are still building sources to add as you look for them. Birth, Census, Marriage, Children, Death. Children - birth, marriage, death. These are the bests records sources to add. So other relatives when they look at her information can see the facts in and of the records - sources and know for a fact they are for her.

How some times the sources do not provide any thing new. That is OK for me any source I find I add. It builds a solid group of sources. Even if many of the sources have been indexed many times. I have relatives with 4 marriage records of the same event. I attach them all. Why so many well they filed at the city level, record, at the county, then another at the state level.
Did this help answer your questions?

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Hm. The name in vitals should always (with one exception) be the birth name. The exception is when the person goes to court and has legal action officially changing their birth name.

Marriage is immaterial to the name in the Vitals section and in your situation, I would record the marriage name as an alternative "Married" name with an explanation.

I would also follow Gordon's excellent advice and create a memory (story) explaining why the person did what they did.

All sources found and verified that they involve the individual should be attached to the person's record. If all the sources are not, then there is a serious risk that a duplicate record for the same person will be created by someone unaware of the situation and we really want to avoid that happening.

LegacyUser

Virginia Florence Horvath said: Dennis, my grandmother was named Laura Annie after her grandmother, however when she was 3 her grandmother died and her parents started to call her Faye Virginia. There was no legal name change. My grandmother did not even know she had a different birth name until after she was married and had 4 children and applied for a passport. She had to get a copy of her birth certificate and found out about the name change. She attempted to have her birth certificate updated by having both of her parents and her aunts file affidavits proving that she never went by this name, she also provided copies of her school records, drivers license, marriage record and children birth certificates. The state of Texas did NOT change her birth certificate. She simply keep copies of the records (including the letter from Texas denying the name change) all her life in case someone questioned why her birth certificate showed a different name. For FamilySearch, I have this written down in several ways. Her FS name is the name that used (Faye Virginia), then under the bio/life story section so it is one of the first things that others see. I also have each record type listed as a source, her birth name and records under alternative information.

I haven’t had any problems with people changing the names on me, I have found that the more information (facts and sources) that I have on a person the less likely that others are going to change them.

I hope this helps.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Tom

I believe the comments in your first paragraph are too restrictive. I cannot find any FamilySearch "instruction" that this is the case. In the last published version of the Family Tree User Guide the advice is:

"Enter the person’s main name. This is generally the complete name that he or she was given at birth."

Note the term "generally". I have not, and have no intention of, entering some of my ancestors / relatives in the name in which their births were registered. Indeed, for a few, their christening name is different from their registered name, so who knows if a mistake was made in recording either event?

I have often quoted the example of my ancestor John HARROD, who was christened as John WALL - he being the illegitimate son of Elizabeth HARWOOD (as the register records her name) and John WALL (senior). He is never found in any other document than in the name of John HARROD (not even the variant HARWOOD, often recorded - along with HEROD - in his mother's records.

Family Tree and FamilySearch are all about finding your relatives and adding sources for them, so why would I want John WALL to be recorded as anything other than an Alternate Name? (Of his attached sources, 27 are in the name of John Harrod and just 3 - all christening-related - in the name of John Wall.)

So I would suggest users follow Gordon's advice, above:

"Regarding the name listed under Vitals, this is usually the name a person was given at birth but there are circumstances when a different name they used is more appropriate. The final decision is up to you."

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I'd agree with you Paul. There is a basic general principle of using the birth name but ... "It depends".