If I find records for some ancestors in Norway, but their name is different when they came to Americ
I found records of my grandfather and his siblings and they are using the traditional Norwegian naming convention of their father's name followed by son or datter. When they emmigrated to America, they all took the last name of their father (they all emmigrated together). Can I add the American last name in parenthesis to their records to make it clear they are the same individuals? Thanks a lot. Still figuring this all out and it's a bit overwhelming.
Answers
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@Lori Mikkelson Jepson You are doing great! Many of us have ancestors who have multiple names that need to be preserved. If you are adding this information to FamilySearch tree you can choose which name you want for the Vitals section (I like to use the one they are born/christened with) and then under "other information" select "add information" and choose "alternate name". This gives you the opportunity to add sources to each of the various names you add. Using parenthesis is often confusing and doesn't help the search engine discover new possible matches.
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Here is a help article relating how to add names into Tree:
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There is also this class that deals with this topic. https://www.familysearch.org/ask/learningViewer/577
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Do enter all of the varieties of their names in full, not combined in any way. A good way to do this is like this (click on the image to enlarge it):
Having each variant listed independently and completely allows the search engine to find any one of them a person might use in a search:
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Everyone - thank you very much for the links and advice, it helped. To Tanner - I watched that class and WOW...that clarified sooo much for me. Thank you for pointing me to it. I'm going to go back to the few records I've worked on and make sure I've added ALL the detail I have. I can see where that really helps clarify who the individuals really are.
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Thank you for this example, I can see where explaining when or why a name variation was used would help. In the case of an ancestor who emmigrated to the US as a very young child, and used the US version of his name for most of his life - would you want to enter his record with the US name variant and then put the birth name in the "Other Information" section, rather than the other way around? Especially when the US name is the one recorded on the ship passenger list or emmigration record?
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Which name you choose for the Vitals section is completely up to you and any relatives also working on these people. Most traditional is to use the birth name but situations and circumstances vary.
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Lori, I love that you thanked everyone, especially Tanner, for helping. This is what makes the Community great when great information is shared and gratitude is expressed. Thanks to all of you for sharing information and joy!
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I had the chance to go through the presentation yesterday and it is very well done. Anyone doing Nordic research would benefit from listening to it.
There are two items in it that are no longer the case that are important to understand so I would like to clarify and correct them to be consistent with the current functioning of Family Tree.
First of all, in the situation where a person was known by more than one surname through life and in the records, he recommended putting one name in the Vitals section and allowing the program to check for duplicates then replacing the name and checking for duplicates, then repeating this until all the names were entered into Vitals. Then putting in the name one really wanted to have there.
This is not necessary. The possible duplicates routine checks the Vitals name and all additional names in the Other Information section when checking for duplicates.
For example, if Hans Olsson was born at the Bjelland farm, moved to the Høyland farm when he was five and lived there the rest of his life, but many records have him with just his patronymic name, the possible duplicates search works exactly as it is supposed to and does a good job finding possible duplicates if I enter:
Vitals name:
First names: Hans Olsson, Last names: Bjelland
Other Information Alternate Names:
First names: Hans, Last names: Olsson
First names: Hans Olsson, Last names: Høyland
Entering the names this way also works great for the Hints engine and hints will show up for all of these versions of his name.
Secondly, the presenter stated that it was best to not include extra terms in a place name such as county because it would throw off the possible duplicates routine. However, the possible duplicates routine as well as the mapping, searching, and hinting routines all use the standardized place name, not what is typed in for display. This means that one can, if needed, be just as precise as desired for clarity and accuracy when entering place names as long as the name still standardizes properly.
This example of extreme overkill:
still works perfectly well in all FamilyTree program routines because they look at just the standardized form which is shown below the full place name.
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Thank you very much for clarifying this! All these tidbits of information really help us newbies to figure it all out. 😊
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I use the name the person called themselves when they were an adult as the main name. For example, my great grandmother was Lorraine Belle Bowman at birth, but she hung out her shingle as a chiropractor with the name Laura B. Taylor (Taylor was her married name). So I've called her Laura B. Bowman, with Lorraine Belle Bowman as Birth Name in the Alternate names section.
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