Best practice - Unknown person

[Deena B]

Hi. What is the best way to handle when there is an unknown person like you know someone's father's name but not their mother.

A) just fill in the father and leave the mother blank (no name at all)

B) fill in a name of "Unknown Unknown" for the mother

I'm attaching a screenshot of a couple where I know both their father's names from patronyms but nothing of their mothers. I did one one way and one the other way. I suspect I should not put in anything for the person unknown. I just used to do that and now want to make a conscious decision and clean up my data.

Thanks for the input.

Deena

[KirkS]

I struggle with this also. I don't think there is a perfect answer, or even ONE answer. It's what works best for you.

I would say the most important factor is to be consistent with how you treat these records.

MY preference is that if I have NO facts on the person, I don't create a person. I just leave an empty slot.

[theKiwi]

I enter unknown persons as

Mister SomeName if I know that there is a father for a person whose name I do know - particularly in the situation where there might be siblings you do know about who would be unlinked if you didn't enter a fake parent.

and

Miss [--?--] for a female who I know exists but I don't know anything about.

Roger

[Bob White]

If I have a first name, I only use the first name field and leave the last name field blank. By doing that, all such records list at the beginning of the People list over on the right. This makes it easier to keep track of these unknowns.

If I have no name at all, I do not create a person. I'll just enter notes about what I do know in the existing record.

[KirkS]

I do the same as you Bob White .

Especially for people that aren't in my close family. And often for the spouses of distant cousins, when I'm not interested in chasing their line, I'll add a research note to the cousin stating something like, "Married Jane Waters, daughter of Jim and Helen Brooks Waters."

[Deena B]

Thank you for the thoughts, I think the most important takeaway then is to be consistent and the other points are noted. Thanks.

[Sue Guptill]

I enter First Name: Unknown wife/husband of XXX. Last Name: Unknown. That way you don't have a bunch of "Unknown Unknown" entries with no easy way to figure out who they are in the person list.