Pépin III "le Bref", Roi des Francs - Record of Alternative Data After Merges

Forename Pépin III OR Pepin III "The Short", 8th King of all Franks

Birth Location Jupille-sur-Meuse (Liège), Wallonia, Belgium OR Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, France

Justin Durand & Private User - given the discussion on position and use of ordinals, I thought you might want to comment on the '8th king' option. I've lost track of whether we came to an agreement and if / how it should be represented.

I like the format 8th King of the Franks. I think VIII, King of the Franks is confusing.

Normally, I put the succession number in the Occupation field, not the name field. In this case, though, we have a further problem -- what system makes him the 8th king? I don't know. It would be hard to come up with any number because the Franks split the kingdom and reunified it so many times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_the_Franks

I can live with Pépin III, for disambiguation purposes, although during his lifetime he didn't have a number. Notice that the biographical articles in French and English Wikipedia no longer number this family.

There is a problem with his surname de Herstal. De Herstal was his grandfather's surname, but not his. Using de Herstal here creates confusion between him and his grandfather.

For consistency, we should perhaps change his surname "de France" to "des Francs", or leave it out altogether as you did on another profile in this area recently.

We don't know where he born. There is even a small quibble about when. Some secondary sources say 714, others say 715 (MedLands, French Wikipedia). We have "about 714", which seems good enough.

We also need some work in this area on consistency of presentation. Some of the profiles use English for display names, while others use French. If there is an emerging standard, it seems to be using French for the basic name fields, and English for the display name. Also, as a stylistic issue it is more common in French to use lower case for the first letter of titles in names (roi des Francs, rather than Roi des Francs).

Yes, personally, I find the the Pepin III essential from a user perspective to distinguish between more than one Pepin during merges.

I'm not up to minutely monitoring whether the guy is 7th or 2nd king of the area, though, given the changes that are possible politically and geographically speaking. My feeling is that if you guys decide on a case by case basis that the evidence supports it and you want it in - PLEASE LOCK IT IN, (and add a note) so we know there has been a scholarly decision taken.

What did you think about removing the des Francs as a surname? We didn't really discuss that, and should.

Lower case 'roi' - noted. Thank you.

oh, also - removed 'de Herstal' .

The problem of these profiles 'accruing' extra data through merges is still with us, and is entrenched by not knowing if it is by accident or design - & if there is someone who's toes will be stepped on in the removal :-).

So, Justin Durand , I agree about the need for working on the consistency of presentation in this area. To my mind this endeavor is probably best served on these historical profiles by locking the naming fields as we take decisions, and keeping the discussion as a log of our reasons.

I do feel weary and wary :-) about opening the name debate discussion again, as it always goes on forever without apparent resolution. In my Data Resolution Centre, the people who appear to do most of the merges in this particular area are you, & me.
Perhaps we three can start conforming to a practice and locking fields as we go - with explanations in the Discussion, & a Curator note to alert people to come and discuss changes they suggest on the same discussions.

I'm good to comply with "an emerging standard, that seems to be using French for the basic name fields, and English for the display name."

Above, the Jason Scott Wills disappeared without hypertexting him.
In my Data Resolution Centre, the people who appear to do most of the merges in this particular area are you (Justin), Jason & me. Sometimes I see Pam Wilson (on hiatus).

Sharon, I like these public discussions even though it's just a handful of us working in this area. I like to think that other users also read the discussions, maybe learn something they didn't know, and hopefully get reassurance that their ancestors are being well tended.

I'm going to keep doing what I've done for two years now -- insist that you're the boss in this area ;) If you ask my opinion, I'll give it, but only so that you can consider it along with everything else.

On the subject of removing "des Francs" as a surname, I'm an agnostic.

There are good arguments on both sides.

On one side, there were no surnames in this period.

On the other side, it doesn't hurt to use a toponym taken from the title, for clarity and disambiguation.

I agree that we don't need to re-open the debate about surnames, but I want to say in passing that I still think a toponym is arguably more accurate than using a later academic construction like Caroling or Carolingian.

As your stand-in for the "ordinary user" - I love toponymics. They help orient me in time and place.

On the other hand, why use a surname "des Francs?". Isn't it an appellation or descriptor?

Des Francs is French for "of the Franks". If someone was King of the Franks (roi des Francs), then the question is whether to duplicate surname and title:

Pépin des Francs, roi des Francs

Same function as a toponym, as you can see if he had been:

Pépin de France, roi de France

To clean up the tree display, we often use a display name that shortens the name to:

Pépin, roi des Francs

Before you decide, consider the case of someone without a title. Say a younger son. Would he be Charles des Francs? Or just Charles? If you don't use des Francs as a "surname" you'll have a bunch of Charles that are hard to search for and disambiguate. But, if you do use des Francs as a surname for Charles, why not for his father Pépin the king?

A little later in history, we could have someone where there is a "surname" and it is the same as the title. Something like this:

Guillaume de Toulouse, comte de Toulouse

Would you drop the surname, even if it is documented, so that you can have a "clean" display?

It might be nice to say that we should use a surname only if it's documented, but what I've seen so far on Geni is that most users and curators don't have access to a full list of all the documented names used by each medieval person.

One key question is where to draw the chronological line if we decide the cases are different.

Early on, some of the royal profiles used an entirely different convention. The surname was the title. Nowadays the title is more often in the Suffix or just in the Display Name (and maybe Occupation).

So Erica, as a stand in for the "ordinary user" do you think that using the surname des Francs adds anything? Does it help orient you?

I gave it the google test. :)

This is the name that came up that was most meaningful to me (including neat pictures)

Pépin "le Bref", roi des Francs

Now how exactly we put that together correctly in Geni fields .... I guess I would use First name, middle name, (last name blank, birth surname blank), and display name (or suffix) for roi des Francs.

Does that make sense?

N.B. Occupation is not searchable in the same way in Geni and is not the same as title. His occupation could have been "dictator," or "scholar," or "church reformer.".

Justin Durand and Erica Howton - okay, you've convinced me about the TOPONYMS - I'm happy to use it in the name fields, and elide any duplication in the Display name.
PS What do you know about de vs des?

On the point of OCCUPATION being not so searchable, Erica - that's why I'm loathe to consign occupations like Mayor of the Palace etc (crucial to an historical understanding of that person's name identity) to a field that is largely ignored. I havent got a solution tho :-(

As to the use of versions of CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY in the birth surname field - this practice predates my input on this line. I think it was the Scandinavian Curators who began to use the hidden maiden name field to log the family/dynasty info. I still think it's useful - for the same reasons toponyms are (even tho the person themselves wouldn't have used them), but am not bonded to the idea if it is becoming universally irritating :-)

As to 'leading from behind', Justin - I only let you do it to me because we'd be bereft without your input ;-)

My French is pitiful but "de Francs" seems incorrect. "roi des Francs" seems more to be "King of the Franks."

I'm agnostic on use of the birth surname field for Carolings or Carolingian Dynasty, just would want to see consistency. I don't see it as necessary for Charles Martel.

We're probably getting too detailed for a long public discussion, but a few points.

I duplicate the title into the occupation field, even if it is already in the display name or suffix fields. The occupation fields in this area are a mess. It can take a bit of time to clean them up. Since Geni has agreed to (someday) make the field more visible I think it's worth paying attention to now. Doesn't matter that it isn't indexed. Neither is the About Me, but we should take care to do a good job everywhere on the profile.

If it were only up to me I would remove Carolingian Dynasty from the name fields, and replace it with a toponym (or blank). The better way to keep track of the dynasty is to create a dynastic project. And, there actually is a Carolingian Dynasty project.

There's no point in doing a real language lesson, but briefly:

de France = of France
des Francs = of the Franks

Go a little deeper and you get:

roi des Francs saliens = king of the Salian Franks

On relationships in the name fields: I dislike them, but I predict if we got rid of them we'd have an overwhelming mess within a month. I agree that until we have relationship locking we should leave them.

On "leading from behind": Yes boss, whatever you say, boss ;)