Documenting given name changes
Steve Stone
What is the proper way of documenting given name changes?
Example: A person living in Bavaria is legally known as Johann
Frederick Adam Fisher.
Once he relocates to the USA all legal documents of USA origin now
know him as Adam Fisher.
Steve Stone <n2...@hotmail.com>
D. Stussy
My database has everyone entered by their legal birth name as
primary. The software I use supports aliases, so subsequent names
(including those used in census) get entered as aliases, with the
exception that I ignore married names of women where the surname is
that of her spouse at the time of reference.
With your example, if he were in my database:
Name: Johann Frederick Adam Fisher.
Alias: Adam Fisher.
PS: Are you certain that his German surname isn't Fischer? Such is
the correct phonetic for the language.
"D. Stussy" <spam+ne...@bde-arc.ampr.org>
J. Hugh Sullivan
In my opinion he is Johann Frederick "Adam" Fisher.
Hugh
Wes Groleau
Depends on the tools you use, and what they support.
I would document that as
1 NAME Johann Frederick Adam /Fisher/
2 NOTE used in Bavaria
1 NAME Adam /Fisher/
2 NAME used after immigration to USA
--
Wes Groleau
What if not everyone uses an expression? What then?
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1552
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Steve Hayes
Some programs, like Legacy, allow you to have alias fields, and to
have notes on them as well.
People often have several given names, but they usually only use one
of them, and so after he arrived in the USA he obviously used the
one that most people knew him by.
In English-speaking countries, the first given name is usually the
one people are known by, but in German-speaking countries it is
often the name immediately before the surname that they are known
by, though they are not always consistent in that.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net>
cecilia
Personally, in the database I would list him as Johann Frederick
Adam Fisher, possibly with brackets around the first two names (and
certainly thus if I found that his baptismal record indicated, eg by
underscore, that he was to be known as Adam).
I would probably add a note of explanation, listing documents where
the different names appeared.
In my paper output (done with Word and Powerpoint, so I have
control) I would index him twice, as:
Fisher, Adam <page numbers>
Fisher, Johann Frederick Adam - see Fisher, Adam
If there were in the text references to him as Johann Frederick Adam
Fisher or Johann Fisher, I would add, in the index entry for Adam
Fisher:
(aka Fisher, Johann Frederick Adam)
my...@ic24.net (cecilia)
cecilia
> [...]
> In English-speaking countries, the first given name is usually the
> one people are known by, but in German-speaking countries it is
> often the name immediately before the surname that they are known
> by, though they are not always consistent in that.
>
I have been told that it is normal in German baptismal entries to
underline the name by which the child will be known.
my...@ic24.net (cecilia)
Wes Groleau
> 1 NAME Johann Frederick Adam/Fisher/
> 2 NOTE used in Bavaria
> 1 NAME Adam/Fisher/
> 2 NAME used after immigration to USA
>
Correction: I would do it as (tag error)
1 NAME Johann Frederick Adam /Fisher/
2 NOTE used in Bavaria
1 NAME Adam /Fisher/
2 NOTE used after immigration to USA
--
Wes Groleau
Thinking it Through, Two
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=506
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Wes Groleau
> 1 NAME Johann Frederick Adam/Fisher/
> 1 NAME Adam/Fisher/
> 2 NAME used after immigration to USA
>
oops, tag error. correction:
I would do it as
1 NAME Johann Frederick Adam /Fisher/
2 NOTE used in Bavaria
1 NAME Adam /Fisher/
2 NOTE used after immigration to USA
but my original comment still applies, i.e.,
the answer depends greatly on what tools you are
using to record it.
--
Wes Groleau
A child=E2=80=99s funeral
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=3D1583
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org>
Ian Goddard
It doesn't appear to be a name change. All that's happened is that
a sub-set of his names is being used in the USA. There doesn't even
appear to be a spelling variation.
I have one ancestor who not only had a surname (generally
standardised to Dearnley nowadays) which had a considerable range of
spelling variation but I've no idea what his first name was. The
baptismal register gives it a Amon. On the only signature of his
that I've found he wrote Amond Dearnely. This was in the marriage
register but on the same document the clerk has written Hammond
Dearnally. There are plenty other variations, mostly on the
baptismal and occasional burial registers for his children - and he
had a lot of those.
My conclusion is that it doesn't really matter.
Our ancestors lived much more by the spoken word than we do. In
many cases - and invariably where the subject was illiterate - the
clerk was simply attempting to capture the sound he thought he'd
heard.
The variation on any particular document belongs to that document alone.
If other documents consistently use the same variation, count
yourself lucky.
The name that you enter on your records is a convenient label for
you to refer to a person who once lived. Probably it will be the
most frequent variation. If several people are working on the same
line some coordination will be necessary.
That label might not even be exactly what's written on any of the
originals. For instance you might have the same name in a number of
generations so you need to number them, John Smith 1, John Smith 2,
John Smith 3, etc. Even worse, you may have the same name in the
same generation in different branches and have to differentiate them
by where they lived, John Smith of High Street, John Smith of Side
Street, etc. If your ancestor lived at a time when parish registers
were written in Latin you may have to decide whether to use the
Latin form of the originals or the vernacular which is what the
clerk would have been told.
--
Ian
The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang
at austonley org uk
Ian Goddard <godd...@hotmail.co.uk>
Steve Hayes
That would be useful if you have such a baptismal entry.
Ukes
> People often have several given names, but they usually only use one
> of them, and so after he arrived in the USA he obviously used the
> one that most people knew him by.
>
> In English-speaking countries, the first given name is usually the
> one people are known by, but in German-speaking countries it is
> often the name immediately before the surname that they are known
> by, though they are not always consistent in that.
>
I've seen the given name that Germans were known by referred to as
the "call name".
bob gillis
> What is the proper way of documenting given name changes?
>
> Example: A person living in Bavaria is legally known as Johann
> Frederick Adam Fisher.
>
> Once he relocates to the USA all legal documents of USA origin now
> know him as Adam Fisher.
>
> Steve Stone <n2...@hotmail.com>
How you document name changes depends on your genealogy program,
how you want to record the names and how you want reports to show
his name.
In TMG I usually use as the Primary Name the baptism name which is
what the Johann Frederick Adam Fischer ( to use the usual German
spelling) is. In later documents his ruffnam Adam Fisher is used.
In my program I can have a name Variation of Adam Fisher or
whatever other variations he may have used and use it in any Tag i
want.
What do you mean by "in Bavaria is legally known as Johann Frederick
Adam Fisher". What documents or records do you have that show this
complete name?
If your program does not allow such flexibility I would enter Adam
Fisher as his name and include a note that he was baptized as Johann
Frederick Adam Fischer. Of course his full name will probably not
appear in your name index, Pick List etc.
bob gillis
------- End of Forwarded Message
bob gillis <robert...@verizon.net>