Cannot add no-name people

[genealogist.lily]

I've seen List discussions about how to name unknown people. Some use "Unknown" or "Unnamed" or "Infant" others (like me) prefer to leave the name blank.
In version 9 (sorry to keep harping back) I could click on a blank father box, close it, and it would be active - that is, it had a Person ID number but contained no information. I would do this because I had siblings for a person - but not the names of parents.
In version 10 the parent box requires "something" to activate it. If I just open it and close it without entering something - nothing happens. (I now use a period in the name box which I remove later.) I wish it weren't so awkward to create a blank individual box.
Thanks ~ Lily

[Bob White]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

While I didn't realize that it could be "nothing" in version 9, what I started doing several years ago was to enter NameTBD Doe in the father field. Of course, I'm using the last name of the known child. That tells me that, after research, I still have not found the first name and I figure the chances are usually quite good that the father's last name is the same as the known child. Also, when I have time, I can do a find on the first name "NameTBD" and see what I need to research.

[Linda Thomas]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I've seen List discussions about how to name unknown people. Some use "Unknown" or "Unnamed" or "Infant" others (like me) prefer to leave the name blank.
In version 9 (sorry to keep harping back) I could click on a blank father box, close it, and it would be active - that is, it had a Person ID number but contained no information. I would do this because I had siblings for a person - but not the names of parents.
In version 10 the parent box requires "something" to activate it. If I just open it and close it without entering something - nothing happens. (I now use a period in the name box which I remove later.) I wish it weren't so awkward to create a blank individual box.
Thanks ~ Lily

I agree. I end up putting something there, hitting 'done', then coming back and deleting the field. It shouldn't be so awkward to create and unnamed individual.

[ttl]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I know you're just asking for a simple way to add a place keeper, but I find your post also invites a little philosophical discussion.

My thought is that a completely blank record implies that there is absolutely nothing known about that person. But as Bob says, there is a good chance something about the name of one of the parents is known if you know the names of the children. And if that insight is known, then IMO it should be documented... it's the first piece of data on that person, and is something that invites hanging on additional information.

As an example, for over 10 years in my database, the father of my G-Grandfather James Kenyon and his brother John was listed as FNU Kenyon. The only things I knew about him was that his last name was probably Kenyon and that he probably lived in New York at the same time James was born, and those data points were in my database for my continued consideration.

I finally tracked him down and his first name became known, so that was a data element I was able to add, and his entry finally became Isaac Kenyon. And I was able to change his wife's name from FNU LNU to Esther LNU, until I was able to change it to Esther Ball. Esther was FNU LNU for so long because even though I didn't know her name, I knew she had existed and I knew she too lived in New York.

The point of all this is if I had left his record blank, for me it would be less compelling to push me to further research... that "FNU" was intensely irritating. More importantly, I wouldn't have been documenting the tiny bit I did know, for myself or anyone who inherits my research.

My apologies for indulging in a bit of philosophical meandering.

[Linda Thomas]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I do add what I know. That might just the surname of a male parent. Sometimes it's just the firstname of a female parent. But, sometimes I dont' know either part of the name and in those cases I want them empty, not filled in wth place holder values.

[ttl]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I do add what I know. That might just the surname of a male parent. Sometimes it's just the firstname of a female parent. But, sometimes I dont' know either part of the name and in those cases I want them empty, not filled in wth place holder values.

Sorry, it took so long to compose my post, yours got in between.

I would however be curious to hear of an example where adding a completely blank record would be helpful. For instance, I can add a new child, and go straight to events which would allow me to add an estimated birth or death date or residence, and never add a name. Of course, Reunion 10 would display the name as Unnamed, but that's a different issue.

[genealogist.lily]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

Sorry, it took so long to compose my post, yours got in between.

I would however be curious to hear of an example where adding a completely blank record would be helpful. For instance, I can add a new child, and go straight to events which would allow me to add an estimated birth or death date or residence, and never add a name. Of course, Reunion 10 would display the name as Unnamed, but that's a different issue.

Ah! But I'm not adding children per se. I have the name of a person, and I know the name of a brother/sister to that person. I cannot assume they have the same father and I don't know the mother's maiden name. But I want to show these two siblings together under a common "umbrella". Does that seem clearer? Lily

[plankeel]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

Ah! But I'm not adding children per se. I have the name of a person, and I know the name of a brother/sister to that person. I cannot assume they have the same father and I don't know the mother's maiden name. But I want to show these two siblings together under a common "umbrella". Does that seem clearer? Lily

I come across this problem frequently in my 17th century population reconstruction, but would prefer to give as much data to the "umbrella" as possible, so Father not yet known, Mother not yet known, John Family name unknown. Because many couples had children from previous marriages, there could be three John's in one family, and when a census didn't give their family name, it's kind of guessing. But you could make an hypothesis, based upon age, who is most likely related to who.
As you state it, you seem to know if the "umbrella" is the father or the mother, which in my opinion is essential information to be in an "umbrella" record. So why not add this.

Regards
Huib J. Plankeel

[ttl]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

Ah! But I'm not adding children per se. I have the name of a person, and I know the name of a brother/sister to that person. I cannot assume they have the same father and I don't know the mother's maiden name. But I want to show these two siblings together under a common "umbrella". Does that seem clearer? Lily

I assumed you were interested in linking individuals into a family as you state here.

Your experience may be different, but I've never had a pair of siblings that left me with no inkling of what the parent's names might be. Even if I was wasn't 100% sure, I have usually been comfortable making an educated guess and documenting the circumstances of my assessment in the person's notes.

I realize I may be stretching here, but if there was absolutely no way to ascertain any element of a parent's name, it would still be highly unlikely that nothing could be estimated regarding residence, e.g. if one of the siblings was born in California, it's highly likely the mother resided in California on the day of the birth. If that were the case, then an event could be entered for the parent to establish the record, and no name would be needed. The question here would be if residence is something you track.

I'm not arguing against being able to easily link people together in a family, but your post got me to thinking about the likelihood of identifying the existence of a person about whom absolutely nothing is known. In the database world, an empty record is for the most part pretty pointless, but in a genealogy program, it's a workaround to link other records.

After following my own logic to its conclusion, it seemed to me that I'd never feel the need to add a person to my database if I knew zero about them, and if I had the desire to link people into a family, I'd almost certainly have at least one data point to document about at least one parent, even if it were no more than speculation to type into a note field to help others follow my line of thinking. Which would also establish the record without needing to enter a name.

Of course this would require even more work than typing a period in the name field and deleting it later, but the point here would be that I wouldn't establish the person's record until I had something (even speculation) to document.

Again, sorry for highjacking the topic and turning it into a brain teaser, but for some reason it just sucked me in (doesn't happen much, so I ran with it).

[Peter Cook]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

Getting back to Lilly's original post ...

In version 10 the parent box requires "something" to activate it. If I just open it and close it without entering something - nothing happens. (I now use a period in the name box which I remove later.) I wish it weren't so awkward to create a blank individual box.

The quickest work around I've found is to type a space, and immediately delete it, and then click on "Done" - no need to go back until extra info is found (I prefer the default "UNKNOWN" to be shown). That said, I rarely use it - as there is usually some info to enter immediately e.g. Cause of death : "wife = W in xxxx census"

[martha]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I have been following this discussion, but I cannot, for the life of me, understand what the problem is. I always name the unknown person according to the relationship I know. For instance, if the person is the unnamed son of my cousin Chana, let's say, and I don't know the name of the father, I name that person: Unknown son of Chana [MAIDEN NAME]; or if the name of someone's husband or wife is unknown, I call the person Unknown wife of Joe [BLOW]. In other words, whatever relationship I do know, I include as the person's first name. That way, I know what area I need to examine closer and that there is name information lacking. I cannot understand what positive research attribute a blank or no name would produce...

Martha

[Metheo]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I cannot understand what positive research attribute a blank or no name would produce...

If you're scanning birth/death records from the 19th century and before, you find a lot of stillborn children or children who died before being baptised, i.e. unnamed. You just don't want to worry about their names, not even want to call them 'NN', just hit the enter key saving them, as the system tracks them as nonames anyway.

But I understand that this is working fine if e.g. birth or death info is entered.

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

FNU LNU

I really like these expressions - thanks, Tim. I've been adding quite a few of them to my records, and I now have one or two people called FNU LNU. In the case of women whose maiden name is unknown, I've decided to add it to the first name, so for example an Yvonne married to a Linsell, who used to be shown as Yvonne [Linsell] is now Yvonne LNU [Linsell], which shows in the people sidebar as [Linsell], Yvonne LNU. The advantage is that you can find her in a search for all LNUs as well as a search for all Linsells. Also, it makes it even clearer that a [Linsell] is not exactly a Linsell.

[ttl]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

I really like these expressions - thanks, Tim. I've been adding quite a few of them to my records, and I now have one or two people called FNU LNU. In the case of women whose maiden name is unknown, I've decided to add it to the first name, so for example an Yvonne married to a Linsell, who used to be shown as Yvonne [Linsell] is now Yvonne LNU [Linsell], which shows in the people sidebar as [Linsell], Yvonne LNU. The advantage is that you can find her in a search for all LNUs as well as a search for all Linsells. Also, it makes it even clearer that a [Linsell] is not exactly a Linsell.

I should develop a LNU family crest because it's very well represented in my database.

[genealogist.lily]

Re: Cannot add no-name people

Tim Said... "I should develop a LNU family crest because it's very well represented in my database."

GRIN. Thank you Tim, that is a perfect wrap up to this discussion. I like Peter Cook's suggestion of adding a space and immediately deleting it. I think that will work for me. Many of us have our own individual methods and styles and Reunion does a bang up job of trying to keep us all happy. Thank you everyone, for taking the time to consider (and answer) my concern. ~ Lily