Hello. I've read a bunch of past posts about recording variations on names. Hoping for some advice on whether using Notes or Facts is the best way to go for my data.
I have quite a few ancestors with multiple variations of names -- many non-intuitive -- like a woman who went by Rosie Krawitz later in life but who had the following variations of her name from various documents and her gravestone:
Rossie/Rosa/Rosie/Rose/Ester Raizel
Shteyn/Stein/Stone/Zemel/Krawitz/Kravetz/Krawetz
I have mostly used a Notes field I created called Name Notes where I list those two lines at the top of the Note for the given name and surname as I just did above. Then, below that I list each name and link a source so an example would be:
On her gravestone, her English name is Rosie KRAWITZ and her Hebrew name is Ester Raizel bat Yisrael Isser^123
For some people, I'll have a half dozen or more rows of information like this. A lot of folks have patronyms like in my example "Ester Raizel bat Yisrael Isser" where bat means daughter or if it was in Russian documents she might show up as "Rache Iserovich", for example so I might keep some lists like that in the Notes field of names to search when looking in foreign records.
At one point, instead of the Name Notes field, I was using a Fact field called Unofficial Alias where I did something similar putting a different Unofficial Alias Fact for each instance or variation of a name along with a date and of course, linking a source.
Both ways seem valid. What I like about the Notes field is it is really easy to see all the name variations in one place and to keep other notes explaining say that "Chaya is a Hebrew name that often is translated to English as Ida or Ide" and being able to link sources to explain name variations so I have context. That information doesn't fit neatly in Facts.
The Unofficial Alias or Alternate Name type fact fields also confuse me. I think I read in another thread that Alias (GEDCOM ALIA) is meant for maybe official aliases whereas Nickname (perhaps GEDCOM NICK) is meant more for Nicknames which I take to mean something like "Rosie" for Rose. The way I deal with those is I would put in the main name fields Rose "Rosie" STONE as her name (I always use the maiden name for women in the main surname field.)
My question is what do others do? What are the pros and cons of these two approaches? I think there might be report implications I haven't considered. I've been mostly focused on input and haven't considered output. It would be nice to be able to provide the name notes to someone as it's often key to finding records and researching.
I'd welcome any direction or suggestions. Thanks,
Deena
I have quite a few ancestors with multiple variations of names -- many non-intuitive -- like a woman who went by Rosie Krawitz later in life but who had the following variations of her name from various documents and her gravestone:
Rossie/Rosa/Rosie/Rose/Ester Raizel
Shteyn/Stein/Stone/Zemel/Krawitz/Kravetz/Krawetz
I have mostly used a Notes field I created called Name Notes where I list those two lines at the top of the Note for the given name and surname as I just did above. Then, below that I list each name and link a source so an example would be:
On her gravestone, her English name is Rosie KRAWITZ and her Hebrew name is Ester Raizel bat Yisrael Isser^123
For some people, I'll have a half dozen or more rows of information like this. A lot of folks have patronyms like in my example "Ester Raizel bat Yisrael Isser" where bat means daughter or if it was in Russian documents she might show up as "Rache Iserovich", for example so I might keep some lists like that in the Notes field of names to search when looking in foreign records.
At one point, instead of the Name Notes field, I was using a Fact field called Unofficial Alias where I did something similar putting a different Unofficial Alias Fact for each instance or variation of a name along with a date and of course, linking a source.
Both ways seem valid. What I like about the Notes field is it is really easy to see all the name variations in one place and to keep other notes explaining say that "Chaya is a Hebrew name that often is translated to English as Ida or Ide" and being able to link sources to explain name variations so I have context. That information doesn't fit neatly in Facts.
The Unofficial Alias or Alternate Name type fact fields also confuse me. I think I read in another thread that Alias (GEDCOM ALIA) is meant for maybe official aliases whereas Nickname (perhaps GEDCOM NICK) is meant more for Nicknames which I take to mean something like "Rosie" for Rose. The way I deal with those is I would put in the main name fields Rose "Rosie" STONE as her name (I always use the maiden name for women in the main surname field.)
My question is what do others do? What are the pros and cons of these two approaches? I think there might be report implications I haven't considered. I've been mostly focused on input and haven't considered output. It would be nice to be able to provide the name notes to someone as it's often key to finding records and researching.
I'd welcome any direction or suggestions. Thanks,
Deena