That's a great idea. I've never seen any suggestions on how to handle this in a way that facilitates searching, so my own solution has been to use ?-surname where surname is the married name. It signals to me that I don't know the maiden name, but also allows me to search for her based on her married name, and it reminds me when I come across her at a later date to look for signs of new documents that might fill in those clues. It isn't necessarily clear to other people who come across her in my public tree. I wish there was a way to indicate to the software that the woman didn't change her name after marriage, similar to your idea of a checkbox to indicate unknown maiden name.
I create my on-line ancestry profiles on the website WikiTree. WikiTree profile format is designed to enter the wife's Given Name, followed by her Birth Surname, followed by her Married Surname. If her Birth Surname is not known, WikiTree instructs people to enter the word Unknown in the box for her Birth Surname, it would then appear as follows: Example: Gertrude Schmitt formerly Unknown " Now, I do this and from what I have seen in other profiles, other members of WikiTree appear do this also. I Love WikiTree ! And I think it is sadly Underrated in comparison to Ancestry, which I do not subscribe to or use
A long time ago, I used an app with a dedicated maiden name field. When presenting data, the app showed the name and, if married, the maiden name in parentheses. Of course, that app stopped being supported years ago. I then settled on Heredis about 2012. They had no dedicated maiden name field, I put the maiden name in parentheses in the suffix field. Reports now read "Mary Sue Smith (Jones)," which I like, but it is not searchable. On Family Search, they are positively militant about putting the maiden name in the last name field. That's absurd. For most married women, certainly before 1970, most of their life they went by their married name with no reference to their maiden name. Worse, they frequently used their husband's name "Mrs John Williams." I have a death certificate from 1939 of a 30 something year old wife "died of surgical shock," in the name of deceased it reads "Mrs. Clarence Russell." Her father's name is on the death certificate, but not her name on her own death certificate. With so many people involved in genealogy and so many companies with software, I cannot fathom why nobody will address this issue. Give us a maiden name field and then options on how we prefer to display it. Alternatively, give us a dedicated married name field. It doesn't seem to exist.
That's a great idea. I've never seen any suggestions on how to handle this in a way that facilitates searching, so my own solution has been to use ?-surname where surname is the married name. It signals to me that I don't know the maiden name, but also allows me to search for her based on her married name, and it reminds me when I come across her at a later date to look for signs of new documents that might fill in those clues. It isn't necessarily clear to other people who come across her in my public tree. I wish there was a way to indicate to the software that the woman didn't change her name after marriage, similar to your idea of a checkbox to indicate unknown maiden name.
Thanks! I've used the married name in parentheses, but I hadn't thought of using "née ?" in the suffix field.
I create my on-line ancestry profiles on the website WikiTree. WikiTree profile format is designed to enter the wife's Given Name, followed by her Birth Surname, followed by her Married Surname. If her Birth Surname is not known, WikiTree instructs people to enter the word Unknown in the box for her Birth Surname, it would then appear as follows: Example: Gertrude Schmitt formerly Unknown " Now, I do this and from what I have seen in other profiles, other members of WikiTree appear do this also. I Love WikiTree ! And I think it is sadly Underrated in comparison to Ancestry, which I do not subscribe to or use
A long time ago, I used an app with a dedicated maiden name field. When presenting data, the app showed the name and, if married, the maiden name in parentheses. Of course, that app stopped being supported years ago. I then settled on Heredis about 2012. They had no dedicated maiden name field, I put the maiden name in parentheses in the suffix field. Reports now read "Mary Sue Smith (Jones)," which I like, but it is not searchable. On Family Search, they are positively militant about putting the maiden name in the last name field. That's absurd. For most married women, certainly before 1970, most of their life they went by their married name with no reference to their maiden name. Worse, they frequently used their husband's name "Mrs John Williams." I have a death certificate from 1939 of a 30 something year old wife "died of surgical shock," in the name of deceased it reads "Mrs. Clarence Russell." Her father's name is on the death certificate, but not her name on her own death certificate. With so many people involved in genealogy and so many companies with software, I cannot fathom why nobody will address this issue. Give us a maiden name field and then options on how we prefer to display it. Alternatively, give us a dedicated married name field. It doesn't seem to exist.