Legal Name Change

[wmconlon]

I have a relative who had his name legally changed by the court.

This is an unusual situation, which I just note, but I am curious if there is a standardized approach to handling this?

[SGilbert]

Re: Legal Name Change

Don't believe "there is a standardized approach to handling this".

What I do is last the list name as: Smith->Jones. (and, yes, I explain in notes)

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Legal Name Change

ZThis is an unusual situation, which I just note, but I am curious if there is a standardized approach to handling this?

As SGilbert says, no standard technique (but I'd say it's not really an unusual situation either).

I usually enter the birth name, unless the later name is so famous that that's the one I'd look up the person under (say, Cary Grant rather than Archibald Alexander Leach).

But except in those circumstances, I generally give some indication of the name change within the Last and FIrst name fields, and explain more fully in a note.

Examples:
First: William
Last: Alexander-Shaw, later Alexander
Note: dropped the name Shaw by royal licence 17 June 1876.

First: James Lewis
Last: Macie, later Smithson
Note: His mother died leaving a will requesting he change his name to Smithson, that of the Duke of Northumberland, who had fathered him. He announced his change of name to Smithson, his father's, in the London Gazette of 16 February 1801.

First: George
Last: Pretyman, later Pretyman-Tomline
Note: changed his name after inheriting an estate at Riby in Lincolnshire from Marmaduke Tomline, quite unexpectedly as they had met only a handful of times.

First: Tessa
Last: Ralli, later Titterton
Note: adopted by her stepfather, whose surname she took in 1954

First: John
Last: Lyon, later Bowes
Note: Lyon became Bowes-Lyon as a condition for inheriting the wealth of George Bowes, a Durham industrialist whose daughter he married.

First: Edward

[Bob White]

Re: Legal Name Change

I have a relative who had his name legally changed by the court.....
This is an unusual situation, which I just note, but I am curious if there is a standardized approach to handling this?

Not at all unusual. Anyway, I have a consistent way (as opposed to a standard).

I make the current/last legal name the main name entered in Reunion. And then I always begin the Notes section "Born John Doe" followed by, if appropriate, by any other name changes.

Example: Mary Pickford would start in my Notes as Born Gladys Louise Smith.