Polish Gender-specific Endings?

It's relevant for many eastern Europe states.
For my Lituanian anccestors I use the same name for both gender in order to make it easier to find matches.

For the Polish and Belarusians in my wife's family, we use the names that they went by without modification. Meaning that the -a or -aya and the -i or -iy endings are retained. Actually, there would be less a chance of a mismatch that way anyway, given that you wouldn't want a male family member matched with a female family member.

Ben - How can we confuse male and female merging?
Even if you try to merge someone named Sasha - there is a *RED* warning about gender

Private User, if you follow a simple researcher rule of never fabricating facts but respecting primary sources I can't see how you can end up using US traditions on Polish profiles. This sounds like all those who force a married name on women without having any documentation telling that they had or used it.

Surnames and name rules changes over time and the tree should represent that, but of course some normalization of names is needed simply because there did not exist any standard on how to spell a name, and then it is very important, as you pinpoint, to know the traditions used in that area in that specific time period.

Bjorn, if you read my post carefully, you will see that I am respecting primary sources. The problem is that when these people were in Poland, they used the Polish ending and when they were in the US they used the American ending. Therefore, the Polish baptismal record and US death certificate don't agree. Which one do I go with? It is quite possible that a married woman in the US would have answered to both names exactly the same.

Speaking of primary sources, an unquestioning adherence to primary sources can also be inaccurate. The Polish baptismal records were supposed to be in Latin. Therefore, many of the priests who filled out the baptismal record converted the Polish first names into Latin. Eg. Franciszek became Franciscus. I submit that in that case, I would not use the name in the primary record but convert it back to the Polish.

Birth versus immigrant name, - that is a never-ending discussion like married names or not. At what part of your life should a genealogical record reflect.

The genealogical "standard" is always to use birth name in the primary fields and other names listed as additional names with optional time periods, but currently Geni does not have that option - which you can read more about and discuss in the maiden name quarrels.

When it comes to Franciszek versus Franciscus it is like all primary sources, - you sometime have to "normalize" the spelling and I agree it should be converted back to Polish but you should probably also mention the naming in the primary source.

Hi Yaacov:

You'd be surprised what you find out there. :)

Hi Richard:

Mostly an aside, I think that recent baptismal certificates in that area of the world are now in Polish. My daughter was baptized at a Catholic church in Grodnenskaya Oblast, and her baptismal record was in Polish (apparently they transliterated Angel as Angiel). For her, we wouldn't use the baptismal certificate as a dominant source document for her name. She is registered with Belarusian authorities in her home town as Angel in latin letters, and Ангел in cyrillic letters.

As to the argument over birth name versus name at present or death, I'll leave all the arguing about that to the people who are more active in the quarreling on the other discussions. My input there has ever been "what was she known as?".

Private User all good points. There are so many variants and factors to consider when you are dealing with these complex situations. Add to that the beginning of surnames in Poland and Lithuania and lots of variation in records as both you and Ben point out.

Polish names in the U.S. is a separate subject. Very often Polish names were screwing up just because an immigration officer, who wrote down these names did not speak Polish and they wrote down names as they heard from the mouths of Polish immigrant. Many Polish vowels and consonants is not yet in English. That is why a lot of Polish surnames recorded incorrectly.
And now we Genealogists have a problem with the interpretation of these names and place names, towns and villages in Poland.
The female form is the name Michalski: Michalska. But there is also another form of feminine names taken by women after marriage than their husbands, for example: wife, husband named Kubas (read: Cubas), it Kubasov (read: Cubas'ova). Feminine endings to her husband 's names in Poland "s" or "-word."
However, it is still often used in Poland Maiden form of the father's surname.
For example, in the name of Konrad's wife will be called Konradów (read Conrad'ova), but their daughter will no longer be called Konradówna (read: Conrad'oovna).
There are currently no maidenly in Polish feminine form of names ending in "-ski". Historically, this was in addition to forms ending in "ówna" (read:-oovn) is also a form ending in "-anka" For example, the father of a daughter named Pomian formerly was called Pomianówna Pomianka or later. In such a form from the first ends "-anka" and then "-ówna" often recorded such names in the parish as a daughter and then as a bride. Currently, the female forms often ending in "-anka" we only use for the determination of women - inhabitants of towns and villages in Poland: Torun - Torunianka, Krakow (read: Cracov) - Krakowianka (read: Cracov'ianka) etc.
Greetings from Poland !.

Thanks Andrzej. I had no idea the issue was that complex. I really regret that I don't speak Polish. That knowledge has been lost through the generations. All my (American-born) grandparents spoke Polish but they did not teach their children. In fact, my father spoke Polish only because he learned it in grade school. (The fact that my father knew Polish came as quite a shock to my paternal grandparents because they had been using it to discuss matters that they wanted to keep secret from the children!)

Yes! I do think the real reason why so many of our immigrant ancestors didn't work harder to pass on the "home country" language was so they could have an "adult" conversation without the "big ears" of their children.

It also turns out that some of the "they changed the name at Ellis Island, don't blame me" story is a tad apocryphal. Names were written at port of embarkation for ship rosters so those records, if they can be found, will be as accurate as the shipping clerks in the home country -- *assuming there were no intervening countries, languages and clerks, not a good assumption for Poland!* -- were. (Immigrants as baggage? Certainly in the "steerage" classes ...) I think the years between "emigration" and "naturalization" are probably more telling as a narrative.

If the name was difficult in English or sounded rude, the Ellis Island clerks didn't care; they had too much paper, not to mention smelly, sick and scared human luggage. But when it came to collecting a paycheck? Make it easy to get paid, please!

It doesn't help that historically English is not all that into "spelling it right" either. :)

Bjorn, as you mentioned, Geni doesn't have the capability to handle name variations/changes at the moment. You mentioned that it's common practice to use the birth name for the first/last name fields.

Are there other commonly accepted practices within the Geni community that we should try to follow, for consistency sake? Do people put all of the alternate names in "nickname"?

As a curator I look at profiles as "works in progress." I trained as an artist so my analogy is developing a painting. First you sketch it out. Then you assemble the research tools. Then you refine, clarify, granulate, etc.

Use the fields as labeled. You can't go wrong with that. Make notes in the "about me." Again, you can't go wrong with that.

And I use "nicknames" for "alternate names" and am agitating to have that field re-labeled "also known as" for clarify. Bjorn tells me that the Norwegian translation already has "nicknames" translated as that (smart!)

Feel free to throw me links of any public profile you have questions about, Jennifer.

Good questions Jennifer. Here's a rule of thumb I use when dealing with alternate names:

If people are used to an Anglicized version of the name of a famous figure, like Hugues I de Montfort-sur-Risle, I put the alternate in parentheses -- Hugues I (Hugh) de Montfort-sur Risle. That way it's recognizable to someone who doesn't know the Norman French original, while still being historically accurate.

If the name is a variant of a given name such as a person is known as Mary or Jane -- this is a real example from an ancestor, records vary -- I put one of them in nicknames (under Personal tab).

Again, however, if users will have an issue if they don't see the alternate name, I put the name where it's visible. In Colonial times you had a couple of versions of names due to spelling or some unknown reason. I have an immigrant ancestor named Wilbore (surname) whose children dropped the "e" and whose later descendants spelled and still spell it Wilbur. So I put either Wilbore (Wilbur) or Wilbor (Wilbur). When I don't, people come in and change it over and over :) And that's understandable, if they are a Wilbur descendant whose last name is Wilbur :)

The devil's in the details in my view. While there are great guidelines and examples in the naming standards Wiki, some of the practices need to address what is practical and workable.

Surnames changes over time so in my opinion you should let that be reflected in a line too. If descendants of a person spells the name different let them do that, but don't force it to the ancestors if the sources shows a difference.

Bjorn - in early Colonial times spelling was all over the place so actually you'll see names spelled multiple ways.

Spelling variants can be normalized to modern forms, but when you observe that a name obviously have changed (like the first example when it got genderless) you should ensure that the difference is reflected in the line and not get an effect on earlier lines.

We have a similar problem in some Nordic lines when someone use a noble name on earlier generations even if sources tells that a specific person in a line got it and not his ancestors.

I think we need a new method for managing data by time-line.
It's quite complicated to implement, but it allows all of the above.
I've mentioned a "hint" about it earlier, regarding names per language.
Holding a record of "name changes" per date will allow managing name changes of any profile after immigration or marriage, or any reason of name changes.
keeping this, along with *main* name field standardization will supply answer to many question asked here.
If Geni staff would like to read more about it - I'd be happy to help.

Dzien Dobry Andrzej:

I don't suppose you've done much with Eastern Poland, have you? Family names that I'd be most interested in are Shadura, Bernatowicz (or variants), Piletski (or variants), and Kupranowicz (or variants). Regions would be Lida and Ostrovets districts, former Polish, located presently in Grodnenska Oblast in Belarus.

Much appreciative... and glad to see someone who knows his stuff here on Polish names...

In my case, it appears that the names don't "change" . Rather, they vary depending on which language the speaker is using. For example, my grandfather was born in America and named "Valentine." (He went by "Walter.") However, his death notice published in the Milwaukee Polish-language paper listed him as "Walenty." Did he ever stop using "Walter." No. At any point in his life, it would have been "Dzien Dobry, Walenty", but "Good Morning, Walter". I think the same would hold true for the feminine endings on the last names, although maybe somewhat less consistently. (For example, the last name of his mother on Walter's (English-language) birth certificate is "Markowska" but its."Markowski" on his English-language death certificate.) It's not a time-line issue, it's a language issue.

You are again back to the main question:

At what part of a person's life should the basic fields of a genealogical record reflect?

Bjorn - There is NO deterministic answer to this question.
We can try and analyze this question endlessly. If one is known as Muhammad Ali but born as Cassius Marcellus Clay
we need to give the option to reflect this data to the match engine, and to allow human users to see ALL of the possible names.
As I wrote before - It's a bit complicated database design - but a possibilities are infinite.

If is the primary answer you have to agree on with current Geni structure because we only have one first and last name field.

Yaacov, it's not so much the database design that's at issue but the human factors in having a large and relatively untrained user base input and manage such time calibrated fields. I like the idea but wonder at the practicality.

Smart design can fit to expert and novice users.
If the "main" fields are used for "base users" and the complex record for the experts - we can have both cases solved

Other problems with statistic. Now I have: "Most Common Surnames: Ostrowska Ostrowski Raciborska Raciborski". Last names with one form are favored. It should be "Most Common Surnames: Ostrowscy Raciborscy".

I rest my case...
we cannot expect Geni to resolve Surname origin from it's gender variations

Yaacov wrote:

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If the "main" fields are used for "base users" and the complex record for the experts - we can have both cases solved
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Yes, that's also good organizational structure.

On the most basic level, the int'l bank I worked for had three data input teams ultimately resolving (through feeds) to the same database:

- back office (complex data input)
- front office (simple data input but sophisticated analytics)
- middle office (reconciliation, reporting)

Their input screens were entirely different in look & feel. Did anyone care? Only IT. :)

Now I know that at my work we were not the only "crazy" database designers.
Thank you Erica.

Yaacov