Questions from a beginner regarding naming convention and sourcing

Alexandra924

Hi! Norwegian here. I've previously done a little research on my family tree but it was mostly surface level. Name, birth, death, no deep sourcing, etc.

I'm amazed at the amount of resources out there and I dove in at the deep end (30+ browser tabs per person), but quickly decided to take a few steps back to properly sort my findings before I enter them as I've discovered previously created ancestors and I don't wish to edit other people's work without attaching sources.

Some questions keep coming up for me however:

1. Is there a naming standard when there are many name variations and spellings throughout the life of a single individual?
2. Is there a standard for women's last names when mentioned as both -sen and -datter/dtr.?
3. I just discovered I can edit indexed records for my ancestors under "research help" and that it's much needed for some of them. Are these indexes internal to FamilySearch or do they come from other sources such as digitalarkivet.no?
4. Am I right to assume I should edit indexes literally and ignore spelling errors in the original records?

Best regards,

Alex

Norm Baker

This webinar may answer your first 2 questions: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/lessons/best-practices-on-family-tree-for-nordic-ancestors.

For your questions on editing indexed records, I would refer you to this Indexing Community site: https://community.familysearch.org/en/categories/indexing-support.

Gordon Collett

1) There is no standard and there are a lot of strongly held opinions. What I personally do is put the person's name at time of birth, that is, as found in their birth record, under Vital's in Family Tree, the entire name, including the surname. Then I put every significant variation of the name or major change in the name under Other Information as an Alternate Name.

2) Throughout history, Norwegians used four different types of last names. What type you had and how it changed through the years depended on where in the country you lived, when you lived, and your social status.

These four types of surnames were:

• Patronymics - this would be a person's father's first name followed by some variety of son or daughter. It varied from year to year and place to place whether this would be -son, -sson, -sen, -ssen, -søn, -ssøn or some other variant for boys, and either -datter or -dotter for girls. People argue about what to use. I prefer to use -sson to designate the male patronymic form and -datter for the female patronymic. (Some people insisit -sen is more correct, but that is Danish. Since most priests and government officials were trained or heavily influenced by Denmark, that is what they used. Some insists -son and -dotter are Swedish, but those are actually truly Norwegian.)
• Family Name - these are fixed last names adopted early in history by the upper class and functioned just like we think of last names today. They would not change for a family.
• Farm Names - these are the surnames used in some parts of the country by farm owners and their families. They were both important for individual identification and as a mark of social status. This surname would change if a family moved to a different farm.
• Fixed Patronymics - these are surnames that look like patronymics but are not. These were adopted by families as the country moved away from patronymics in the early 1900s, but I have seen them in records as early as 1810. The best example of a fixed patronymic surname is your questions about women's last names. Take, for example Anna, the daughter of Jon Hansson. You may see her in records with her patronymic name of Anna Jonsdatter or with a fixed surname such as Anna Hansen. You will never see her in any primary source as Anna Jonsson or Jonsen. A woman would never use a male patronymic. (If you did have an original source showing Anna Jonsen, then you are certain to find that her father is also recorded as Jon Jonsen and that that was the fixed patronymic surname the family adopted.) I like to use -sen for fixed patronymics to differentiate them from real patronymics.

3) The indexes that can be edited on FamilySearch are now internal to FamilySearch although they may be copies of indexes from other sources such as Digitalarkivet. Editing them on FamilySearch will not change the original index on Digitalarkivet.

4) Norwegian original records do not have spelling errors. You cannot have errors when there was no correct way to spell anything. They only have spelling variants. The index should be exactly what is in the original record. Don't "correct" the original record.

Alexandra924

@Norm Baker Thank you! I'll be sure to watch the webinar but so far the linked lesson content has been very helpful.

@Graham Buckell Thank you for the long and detailed reply. It matches up well with the lesson content from Norm's webinar link and my current practices.

My ancestors have mainly (if not exclusively) used the patronymics -sen for boys and -datter for girls and it seems the general area has predominantly used it too.

Farm names were taken by family on both sides of the family at various points after 1900 and they have stuck around since. I include these for people who went by the farm last name for several years of their life because that is what they are remembered as by living people who knew them or their children.

I'm happy to see I'm not supposed to "correct" any indexes that matches the original. I've even found variations in spellings even in the duplicate parish books of the same event.