Placeholders

Situation #1 - Spouse is not known.

Again, this comes down to several situations, I believe.

1. The historical record reflects that "the name of the wife of John Williams is not known."

2. The historical record reflects that "the first name of the wife of John Williams is thought to be Frances, and her parents are not known."

3. The historical record reflects that "the first name of the wife of John Williams is known to be Frances, her parents are not known, but she is known to have been the widow of John Jones prior to marriage to John Williams."

How is her profile best represented in Geni?

How is that adjusted for in various languages and historical periods?

I tend to think this to be a personal preference issue...

I usually use (Unknown). If I want to specify someone that I really don't want to be merged with others, but which has a high probability of being merged, I'll specify something like "Daughter of X" or "Wife of Y" in the display field... usually this is for the ancient profiles ("Repudiated wife of Hunneric" being one such example... her name is lost, but she was important in history in that she was the cause for a break in relations between the Vandals of Africa and the Visigoths - which ultimately led to the end of the Vandal kingdom centered on Carthage... it would be very easy to merge her into another of his wives if kept as only "(Unkown)")

Situation #2 - Parents are not known but grandparents are.

So here we have a "skipped generation."

The most frequent I run across is something like this:

John Williams + unknown, parents of
Unknown Williams + unknown, parents of
John Williams the immigrant + Frances unknown

The unknown wives tend to get themselves married to the wrong generation of Williamses, resulting in incest, intergenerational collapse, and all kinds of other nasty stuff.

I also liberally use Master Profile and do lock them when it's the end of the line, folks ... we know no more.

Here is what I try and do, including use of the "suffix" field for "place names" and the "birth" field -- *not* name fields.

- Unknown Father of John Williams of Kent, birth c. 1375 + [locked MP]
- Unknown Mother of John Williams of Kent, birth c. 1375 [locked MP]
- John Williams, of Kent, birth c. 1400
- His spouse: Unknown Mother of Unknown Williams, birth c. 1400
- His son: Unknown Williams, birth c. 1425
- His spouse: Unknown Mother of John Williams, born c. 1425
- His son: John Williams, of London, birth c. 1450

etc.

What I "don't" like much but live with:

- use of NN
- use of LNU
- use of ??
- use of [-?-]
- use of _____

... or any other private symbolism.

To me, it's unnecessary, it's hard to read, and it clogs up searches.

The word "unknown" translates into all languages and says what we mean: we don't currently have more information about this person, but we do believe they existed.

Ben,

You wrote:

"Daughter of X" or "Wife of Y" in the display field ..."

I agree with that but why the display field? The display field is currently a minefield in merges unfortunately. Why not use the first and last name fields for this situation?

It still comes up in the merge process. I think in second step. But you are right that merge monkeys who punch buttons just to clear 500 merges in their merge issues window might not slow down to look...

I use "??" since is it is language/cultural neutral and add sometimes facts like "Mother of xx" in suffix or curator notes. In any case: Add the facts you know to the About me, even if the fact is that the person is unknown. If the fact is that you have not researched yet who that person is you can leave the spot empty, but as indicated it might lead to bad and at least complicates merges.

The most important rule is however not to fabricate facts on the unknowns like a married name or even as simple as "Wife of".

I am against locking because there might be people out there who have better sources than the curator that locks a profile.

I also use ??, it is language neutral and everyone understands it. Some of my collaborators use '.' to avoid fields being automatically filled during merging

I personally use Unknown and its equivalent in other languages for profiles in the last few hundred years and NN for beyond that (in the cases that I must have a placeholder).

I know Noah talked about implementing an Unknown checkbox.

"I know Noah talked about implementing an Unknown checkbox."

Oh, man, that would help!

I'm going to start another thread to make sure we have the enhancement request list to Geni clearly laid out.

It seems to me that "Unknown" is an (implicitly) reserved word (by Geni).

When one is assigning parents and one of the choices is a single parent, Geni appends "and Unknown", despite there being no profile for the second parent.

That choice then becomes indistinguishable from one where there is a profile for the second parent, and that profile was named "Unknown".

Hence, I do not use "Unknown" in profile names. Initially I used ???, but have ceased doing so and now use Xxx.

The use of X for unknown is universal in mathematics, and has rippled into other areas, such as dates. eg. 195x

Good point and good idea, Phillip. Perhaps we can get a consensus going for "best practices" for the Geni Wiki?

In any case: Remember that Geni tries to be an international site.

I think we need to keep in mind genealogy standards in this case.

What is the current convention / consensus in the "professional" genealogy community for handling placeholders? Any sites to reference?

Maybe this can help, Erica, last sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomen_nescio

I use nn for "First name" and NN for "Last name".

Yeah, I find nn and NN kind of horrible. Is there a problem with the way the English word "Unknown" translates?

Philip I'm not sure I'm following your case. I don't see an "append" for Unknown in Geni, I see "add this person."

Nope, no problem with the way the english word "Unknown" translates, at least if it's written in some language I know. But if the word was "ezezaguna" , "mhux magħruf", "anhysbys", "bilinmeyen", "ukjent" or "ismeretlen" I would get into trouble, because I wouldn't understand them except for one. Would you know these words ment "unknown"? By the way these are all words from european languages which all, more or less, use the roman alphabet.

nn and NN works around the world.

I don't think NN works for people using other alphabets. ?? does.

You're probably right there, Bjørn.

I do however think -?- is some recommended standard.

It is not good argument that "..it does not work for people using other alphabets".

"NN" is an established standard. "GENI" should not try to establish "OWN" standards for already existing patterns.
In such way "NN NN" (as abbreviation from Latin) priests made notices in the church registers indicating unknown parents of a born child (no name - no surname). In a case where only a name was known there was a notice e.g.: Mary NN (no surname)
or similarly e.g. NN Brown (no name)

Ok, this thread answers my question about NN profiles I manage that keep getting deleted. I think it's a good idea to have the NNs because if someone named John Smith (no wife, no date, but obviously 8 grandfathers away) is listed in the tree, with a son named John Smith, they can easily get merged with someone named John Smith born in 1885 with a son named John Smith born in 1900. So, please leave my NNs alone!!!!...even Chris Crocker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc) would feel better.

@Mimi, sorry, I don't follow. How does having an father placeholder help?

Bump

I have a question: For the majority of my profiles, a 'married name' is inappropriate, and so I just enter the original surnames of women. I put the surname into the last name field, NOT the maiden name field, because the whole concept of maiden name seems silly when there's no cultural existence of it. It's just the person's surname.

But I find there are some annoying things Geni does because of this. If I try to add a child to a married woman with no maiden name, the child gets the woman's surname--which makes no sense in most cultures, but nonetheless, it's what Geni does. So I have to add children to the fathers to avoid the absent-minded mistake if I forget to fix it after Geni gets it wrong.

I also end up with a bunch of people with the same name in the surname and the maiden name field, and again, I have to be careful to remove all that.

So, just wondering, do all of you use the Last Name field or the Maiden Name field when you're entering women for whom you don't intend to add a married name?

Linda

Geni is working hard on enhancements to the name fields, as we have noticed some of the issues you raise before. :)

I will just tell you my personal workarounds. For an ancestress (or myself!) where "birth name = surname" - I re-enter the name in both the maiden name and surname fields.

I also, like you, go back and triple check the name of the child to ensure it is carrying the correct name (as I know it).

But when I enter a child with both parents selected, father (his full name) and (mother), I'm pretty sure Geni automatically defaults to the father's name, yet appears as a child on both profiles.

We can test this together sometime if you like.

Hi, Erica-

I'm not sure how to select both parents. I generally add children from tree view, by clicking on the down arrow on one of the parents. In which case Geni assumes the other parent--which as a genealogist I don't much like, but it's usually true, and it's convenient, so I won't complain. :)