Templates and the GPS

Previously suggested templates

https://www.geni.com/projects/Project-Template/175

https://www.geni.com/projects/About-Cleanup/1954

https://www.geni.com/projects/Geni-Master-Profile-best-practices/28084

And https://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Master_Profile

Perhaps a GPS quaity template? Similar to a gold star in Wikipedia articles.

Love this idea.

There is also another kind of template to consider -- the organization of information in the About section of the profile. Here's the gold standard for that:

Early New England Families Study Project
https://youtu.be/oh9ZMvRiPLY

I like the "Stamp of Approval" idea. It allows for judgment on the part of the stamper.

I am getting a little concerned that we're expecting a crowd-sourced tree to be built from entirely written records with professional-level genealogists. Setting the bar that high pretty much dooms the amateur to not meeting it. It's especially worrisome to issue threats of deletion should some professional-level criteria not be met. I am familiar with a number of cases where verbal family lore was a critical bit of information in building a part of the tree -- not a paper document. Obviously, when that happens, it's extremely important to describe the source of the material, but recognize that that's all one is likely to get.

On the other hand, we do need some reviewed measure of the quality of information and rigor behind it. A standard of quality does exactly that, with objective criteria, provided that those criteria are not unreasonable.

Karl, in general I agree. Most Geni users are hobbyists. We need to keep sight of our goal, which is to improve the overall quality of the share tree and help people understand that genealogists expect to see evidence.

On the other hand, personally I would not be inclined to remove a connection that is documented only from a fairly reasonable tradition. I figure the reliability of the average tradition drops dramatically if it's more than 150 years ago. So, if the tradition is more recent than that and doesn't have a negative impact on a lot of other people (say, the case of a famous person or a family dispute), I'm inclined to leave it alone.

Template from early New England Families uploaded

https://media.geni.com/p13/12/29/6b/8b/53444847ba4cddc1/img_1641_or...

Justin, one critical example I can think of was a family member recollection of a maiden name of someone who was born in 1868 and who'd died in the 1940's. Without such a recollection, all avenues had been exhausted -- gravestones, marriage certificates, all not there. The family member is luckily still with us -- but that's the kind of fact that you might not be able to get with written records.

So I guess I agree with your 150-year limit to some extent, although I could imagine another generation back still being handled in this way.

As another amateur, I'd like to raise my concerns about the random way women's names are recorded here. Clearly, the "template" is based on males having one name their whole lives, so people have to struggle to jam women's name histories into that form.

Personally, I'd like to keep women's primary identification their birth name, with other surnames in a subsidiary position. Often on geni one finds someone known as Mary Smith by some, Mary Jones by others and Mary Clark by still others. If there is a standard format, at least everyone will know which name is primary (birth or 1st marriage or longest marriage or whatever) and be able to work from there. Maybe trees can only be merged when birth names are "known?"

This may be too basic an issue for this discussion, but I raise it as a newcomer who is trying to be as accurate as I can be and to make it easier for other newcomers to do the same.

Private User

Have you tried using the 'Name Preferences' in Geni Account Settings
https://www.geni.com/account_settings/name_preferences

Yes, I have it set, but it does not seem to matter with people geni doesn't yet recognize as being connected to me or with master profiles (or it only shows up in tree form, not in profiles). Plus, it does not indicate all known married names. Eg. Maj. Gen Wm Alexander is my fifth gg. His sister is shown as Elizabeth Stevens on his profile page, Elizabeth Alexander in the tree. And her sister Mary's daughter, Susan, has two married names which you can only see on her profile page. The idiosyncrasies of how people choose to name their people makes it confusing. And, for sure, I am still not proficient at navigating in geni.

I agree what wikipedia has a better reputations, but I have seen the mess some wikipedian make of relationships and can make of it unchecked. Maybe you are refering to en.wikipedia.org

If you want examples of templates look at wikitree. They use the good reputation of en.wikipedia and use it to improve wikitree.

For the rest I like the idea. Aspecialy at the moment non-curators also like the idea.

I'm a curator, but for sure are not fully GPS trained and do not always follow that protocol :)

Private User

Just trying to follow what you said
Maj. Gen. William Alexander
William Alexander, Earl of Stirling is R D Parsons' fifth great grandfather!

Here is the path to him
https://www.geni.com/path/R-Parsons+is+related+to+William-Alexander...

You said
"Plus, it does not indicate all known married names. Eg. Maj. Gen Wm Alexander is my fifth gg. His sister is shown as Elizabeth Stevens on his profile page, Elizabeth Alexander in the tree"

Here is how I see his profile
https://ragjaw-hotmail.tinytake.com/sf/MjM5Mzc3OF83MjcwNTM0

Look at his sister on his profile
https://ragjaw-hotmail.tinytake.com/sf/MjM5Mzc4MV83MjcwNTQ3

Her profile
Elizabeth Stevens
I see it this way
https://ragjaw-hotmail.tinytake.com/sf/MjM5Mzc5OV83MjcwNTc2

This is how I see her in the tree
https://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000009628044263#60000000...
https://ragjaw-hotmail.tinytake.com/sf/MjM5MzgxOV83MjcwNjA2

Are you seeing it differently?

Private User

I hope you dont mind but can we discuss this by Geni messages or here https://www.geni.com/discussions/178003

This discussion is for Templates and the GPS, you can still offer your opinions here though

Erica, thanks for uploading the Early New England Families outline. A good resource.

To answer Private User at the moment the field are not filled in correctly the GPS is not followed in my book. I work with the dutch profiles and the dutch laws is very clearly a woman never loses her birth family name. And that gives sometimes problems with some married woman that use their married name at the workplace and get an official document and nobody knows here official name.

If you use smartcopy you will get errror messages at the moment both the married partners have the same birth last name.

If a dutch woman has another name on here death certificate then on her birth certificate that is very rare. And in my family tree I have only 5 dead females in that situation. And they are all family from each other. So at the moment there is only one case of change of family birthname in my family tree before 1800.

Of course I have been married outside the Netherlands so I know that after marriage there is a chance you have to renew your passport. My ex-wife have done it twice. To my last name and back. And my last name does count for two last names in other countries. So adding the two last names was not an option. So be be a GPS licence researcher you also needs to know the local laws you are GPS licensed in. Please correctly if I'm wrong, because I'm not GPS licensed.

Women are vexing! And we don’t have enough name fields to cover all the name changes !!!

This is my solution.

- as far as I understand the change to married last name is Anglophone only. So for Europe & European derived countries, a woman’s last name is same as birth surname. This includes Scotland and Ireland. This does not include the Jewish tree.

- I try to match records. Birth surname is earliest known, last name is last known as. All other names in also known as, comma separated, including spelling variations.

- limited use of Display name, mostly for public figures with a “best known as.”

For Norway prior to 1850 or so, most men or women didn't have family names. So there was nothing to take. This changed gradually in the 1850-1923 period - family names became more common, and also wife being listed with her husband's family name.

Norway post-1923: The law required everyone to have a family name, and the wife got her husband's family name (no exceptions).

Norway post-1965: Choice of names, majority took the husband's family name, some men took their wife's family name, some kept their own.

No, it's not just Anglophone.

'as far as I understand the change to married last name is Anglophone only'

Germany too? Switzerland? France?

'as far as I understand the change to married last name is Anglophone only'

Also China.

Private User what are the conventions in Asia, both currently and historic?

Correct, Germany seems to be married women took their husbands names. Not sure about Switzerland, or about nobility for that matter.

The French assure me that Napoleonic rules are women kept their birth name, and French American colonies followed Napoleonic laws, this includes French Canada, even currently (?).

Since the spread of surnames I have not seen a primary document (wills usually) of a woman retaining her father's name after marriage in England, probably nobility / royalty had different rules.

Nobility always has different rules. :-)

Re: France: The Rhine valley is essentially Germanic and adheres to German conventions, or at least they did prior to 1900.
Re: Switzerland: Same argument. Rhine Valley always Germanic.

Also, I agree that *when* the convention is that the woman take the husband's name, it's typically the last spouse's name that should be represented in the profile. Alternate names should include the other(s), if any.

Erica Howton The thing is, the "last surname" might only have been for a few months after most of the person's life she (and her children) were known by another name. Sorry about having brought this up here. But I can see I'm not the only one perturbed by this!

Short answer: No, Chinese women never took their husband's name upon marriage, except for brief time and certain circles that are influenced by Western practice (and even then it was to form a joint name). I'll just leave it at that.

I welcome any move to improve Geni's reputation, so to attract more people—the type that would contribute to wikipedia—to work on the tree, which then improves Geni's reputation.... My theory is that it can only happen if we are able to "source" relationships, AND to display or annotate it on the paths. Sadly I don't think Geni has the time or resource to work on that (hasn't happened all these years).

Wiki-like "templates" may be what little we could do.

I agree with Private User it is Western practice from the new world and is a weak point from Geni to allow to fill in two differencent last name. For family tree research is important the last name at birth. And the rest are alias'es or nick names. And any profile that has wrongly used field should not be a GPS profile or a MP. But this just IMHO.

A new field should be unsure checkbox. Then every one knows that is just a guess.
Or stillborn then the system know the child has not live a single day. On the reason a profile of a stillborn child can not be GPS record here on Geni, because of the features in the software.

Private User then that would be a use of display name, because even if she's re married for a day and then dies, her "legal" name in records (death certificate) is her last husband's name. So that would be a GPS no no in my book.

The display name can be used to help family members recognize grandma. But that scenario is kind of outside the historic tree, isn't?

I am a bear about ordering marriages & children correctly, that makes a big difference in a tree presentation.

Hoping we can turn this name discussion around and back to GPS.

Presentation of names is endlessly fascinating and endlessly contentious, but it's not really a GPS topic.