Proper Naming - Of Scotland, Earl, etc

[DanChel]

I am just starting to enter a new phase in genealogy naming.

Looking to see what is the best way to record names such as:

David of Scotland Earl of Huntington
King David I 'the Saint' of Scotland

What is the proper way to break enter the first name, last name, prefix, suffix, etc?

Any guidance is appreciate.

Thanks in advance!

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Proper Naming - Of Scotland, Earl, etc

Looking to see what is the best way to record names such as:

David of Scotland Earl of Huntington
King David I 'the Saint' of Scotland

Well, I'll tell you what I do. I don't pretend it's the only or the best way.

A territorial designation like "of Scotland":
a) if there's no actual surname, this goes in the Last Name field
b) if there's a surname, that goes in the Last Name field, and the territorial designation goes in the Suffix Title field.
I set the index to ignore words less than four letters (so "of Scotland" is indexed under S not O".

A title, like Earl of Huntington, goes in a field I created called "description" (which I also use for other claims to fame, like aviator for Orville Wright.) Alternatively, you could put titles in Misc notes. (As they usually come in clusters, I often put the most important in description and the rest in misc. notes.)

A nickname or soubriquet like "the Saint" or "the Bald" goes in the First & Mid name field in quotation marks.

[DanChel]

Re: Proper Naming - Of Scotland, Earl, etc

Well, I'll tell you what I do. I don't pretend it's the only or the best way.

A territorial designation like "of Scotland":
a) if there's no actual surname, this goes in the Last Name field
b) if there's a surname, that goes in the Last Name field, and the territorial designation goes in the Suffix Title field.
I set the index to ignore words less than four letters (so "of Scotland" is indexed under S not O".

A title, like Earl of Huntington, goes in a field I created called "description" (which I also use for other claims to fame, like aviator for Orville Wright.) Alternatively, you could put titles in Misc notes. (As they usually come in clusters, I often put the most important in description and the rest in misc. notes.)

A nickname or soubriquet like "the Saint" or "the Bald" goes in the First & Mid name field in quotation marks.

Thanks Dennis

[Bob White]

Re: Proper Naming - Of Scotland, Earl, etc

Like Dennis, I'll say what I do without any claim it's the right way. Anyway, there are a couple of minor English nobles in my tree. Both have full names. Thus, I recorded the first and last names in the usual places and put the title in the suffix field. (It can accommodate up to 255 characters.)

[Robert Salm]

Re: Proper Naming - Of Scotland, Earl, etc

Hi all. I've been doing what Dennis suggested, and this is fine for Reunion, but there's a HUGE caveat if you plan on exporting your Reunion database for use in Family Tree Maker 2017. Family Tree Maker 2017 handles data entry and the import/export of names quite differently than Reunion. They try to save their users time by automatically splitting names up thinking people just want to enter first and last name in one field and hit the enter button.

For instance, in Reunion:

First & Mid Name: Ferdinand II
Last Name: of Aragon
Prefix Title:
Suffix Title:

Exported using GEDCOM (both 5.5 and Ancestry destinations) and imported into Family Tree Maker 2017, the name is automatically broken up and becomes:

Given Name: Ferdinand
Surname: of Aragon
Suffix: II

And the full name in Family Tree Maker 2017 will become: Ferdinand of Aragon II

Family Tree Maker 2017 has a extraordinarily convoluted system of slashes their users have to enter to get their database to recognize multiple-word first names with no last name (e.g., "Running Bear") or suffixes (e.g., PhD or MD). There's no easy way in Family Tree Maker 2017 to handle complex names without using bizarre slash routines AFTER importing. So if you are documenting hundreds of royals names with umpteen "of Russia," "of Hesse," etc. in Reunion, you'll apparently have to plod through huge gyrations to achieve some sort of usability.

This is just my experience...and one big reason to use Reunion. I don't know who controls the GEDCOM releases that could force Family Tree Maker 2017 into not breaking up names while importing, but this is a huge bug, and one reason why I think Family Tree Maker 2017 is a clunky hot mess of a program.