To a large degree, I have followed the lead of the Portuguese genealogists who publish books.
It is common to list a person with two variant names like this in the book:
António Coelho de Melo (ou Sousa) which means he went by both António Coelho de Melo and also by António Coelho de Sousa.
Since that introduces some degree of confusion, since we might also think he went by António Sousa, but not António Coelho de Sousa, I have decided it is best to eliminate any doubt by writing out their full name for each version. He will be António Coelho de Melo ou António Coelho de Sousa in my program.
I am using Brother's Keeper and the name field is one big field. No separate designations for first and last. There are maybe 125 possible characters.
Anyway, that's one aspect of your message and points to discuss.
Doug da Rocha Holmes
Sacramento, California
Pico & Terceira Genealogist
916-550-1618
Sacramento, California
Pico & Terceira Genealogist
916-550-1618
---------- Original Message --------
Subject: [AZORES-Genealogy] How to record names in your genealogy
program
From: Cheri Mello <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, November 13, 2013 11:11 am
To: Azores Genealogy <[email protected]>
I'm going to start this thread over because I can tell it's going to go beyond the original poster's question.Doug da Rocha Holmes said:So the problem is when the wife is using a different name. Like you said, at marriage she might have used one name, her "marriage name" maybe something like Maria Inácia do Coração de Jesus, but never again used that Coração de Jesus ending. I liken that to what you seem to be calling her marriage name. It's just a fancy way to show her devotion, or something, but never really was her name (perhaps).Take a look at this lady and her name variations. She remained single:Ana Maria ou Ana Bernarda ou Ana de SIMAS ou Ana PEREIRA de SIMAS
She was the godmother for many people over the years and so far I have found four ways she was named.This is a little extraordinary, of course. Most of the time, there is maybe just variation.If combined into one, I suppose someone might call her Ana Maria Bernarda Pereira de Simas, even though that exact name was never found for her.=======================================Back to me, Cheri.I've tried to do this before in a polite way, but it didn't work. So here goes.
We, as Azorean researchers, HAVE TO come up with a standard for recording our names. Will it please everyone? No. But to wait for someone else (who probably doesn't research Portuguese) apply something from some other culture that doesn't exactly work for us won't serve us very well. And we are the ones researching the records.
Here's an example:Anna (1795-1854)Married as Anna Roza in 1813.As a mother, she was Anna do Espirito Santo (1815 1817 1819 1823 1824 1826 1829 1831 1833 1838)
To me, it's pretty clear that she was Anna do Espirito Santo all her life. I'm pretty sure she's also listed that way in her kids' marriages too. So in my genealogy program, she is Anna do Espirito Santo. BUT I do have a note (Ancedote in my program) that says she also went by Anna Roza. Now that I think about it, I don't know why I have that there. I have it noted under the marriage that she married under the name of Anna Roza.
In my genealogy program she is Anna do Espirito Santo.Here's another: Maria de Jesus/Julia/Joaquina (1823-early 1900s).She had 12 kids. Plus the marriage. So that's 13 entries for her and then I can check her kids' marriages as well (in case I'm not confused enough). I'd have to hunt down all my notes on her, but let's pretend she was Maria de Jesus 5 times, Maria Julia 4 times, and Maria Joaquina 4 times. And it jumped around (1st kid she was Maria de Jesus, 2nd kid she was Maria Joaquina, 3rd kid she was Maria de Jesus again). I could not get a clear picture on her name, except that I'm pretty sure she just went by Maria and her middle name was a J name. It was either George Pacheco or Joao Ventura, the archivist, who told me that back in the day, the woman had her baby and then stayed in bed a week or whatever the period of time was back then. The baby was taken by the father and the godparents to the church for baptism. So the mother was not there stating her name. Someone else stated her name. And it appears that this was the case of this Maria. It appears she went by Maria (she was the only Maria in the family growing up - odd) and it appears that no one was certain of her middle name. So in my genealogy program, in the first name field, I have: Maria de Jesus/Julia/Joaquina.
Doug said:There is no right or wrong way to record them. Just keep them organized in whatever way works for each researcher.
=============================That might be true if you are the only person ever to look at your genealogy, but it's not working out here in the real world. It's a pain with the Gedcoms. We HAVE TO come to a consensus on how to record the names.
Suppose Joao C has her under her "married" name of Maria Julia, I have her as Maria de Jesus (because that appeared 5 times) and Doug has her as Maria de Jesus da Joaquina da Julia. Her husband is Luiz de Mello. Not helpful, because it's a common name. And all of us are DNA matches and we are all looking at each other's Gedcoms and we can't find the match. Now, I think people will see the need for standardization of names.
I know reality is that me, Doug, and Joao C, as well as the experienced researchers are going to figure out that Maria is the one and the same. But what do I do (or Rick Pimentel or Nancy Jean do) when we get an email from a DNA person who says that they can't find the connection between them and their DNA match? And both of these people have been doing Portuguese genealogy for a couple of years and they both enter it the way they see fit? There is a need for us to establish a way to type in our names to help out this process.
Doug said:If someone were to record a couple as Manuel Bettencourt and Maria dos Anjos and I record them as Manuel de Bettencourt and Maria dos Anjos, my use of "de" for the husband is not going to throw anyone off.
==========================It depends on the genealogy program and where the "de" is entered. In my genealogy program, I have the following fields that I can use for naming an ancestor:
TitlePrefixGiven namePreSurnameSurnameSuffixOther nameSort surnameSort givenIn Doug's example, I would put Maria dos Anjos completely in the Given name field. For Manuel, I would put "Manuel de" in the Given name and Bettencourt in the Surname. So in my genealogy program, I see Manuel de Bettencourt. Well, gee, Cheri, you have a presurname field, why aren't you using it? (And you all thought I couldn't read minds!)
Given: ManuelPreSurname: deSurname: BettencourtEnd result: Manuel Bettencourt. And if I want to see the "de" my program doesn't display it, or I've never figured it out.
Now I have a problem that my legal name here in America is Mello. Altino's legal name is Demelo.Given: AltinoSurname: DemeloSortSurname: MelloAnytime I search for Mello, Altino comes to the top of the Mello list (because of his first name, Altino. His brother, Victor, is at the bottom of my Mello list, even though I spell their family surname as Demelo).
But how do we deal with this in other genealogy programs? Some just have a name field that does not specify first and last name. And some genealogy programs just have a place field and they don't specify city, state, country, etc.
Opinions, inputs, discussion?
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