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Married surnames for women


TomS

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This is a general question about married surnames for women -

I just put my site up and immediately got a comment from a cousin about not being able to search for herself using her married surname, only her birth surname.

I made the choice to maintain the birth surnames in my database, and my genealogy s/w only lets me have one surname in there. But even if it let me have multiple surnames (for instance, TMG will let you put a married name in for a person, and will export it as a second NAME line in your gedcom), TNG takes that second NAME line and considers it a nickname in addition to any NICK entries you might have.

Ideally, I'd love for TNG to hold multiple names in its master name list, pointing to the same record with add'l names displayed not under the nicknames.

Has anyone dealt or thought about this issue at all? Input appreciated.

TomS

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I'm using Reunion, and that allows, and usefully supports a married name field. It has GEDCOM tag NAMM (I don't know if Reunion assigned that by default, or I assigned that tag to it).

One of the things Reunion will do, is if you fill in the Married Name field for a person, it will use that as their married name, instead of assuming that the married name of a female is the surname of her husband.

Because of the way Reunion treats this, it does survive into a TNG import, and appears in a field I called "Married Name" when I set up the Custom Fields in TNG.

You can't search on it though in TNG - at least not without some "hacking" of the search form I guess.

Roger

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Thanks Roger, that's helpful, and a useful way to manage married names. The unfortunate part of that is that they are unsearchable really.

In my ideal world, multiple NAME tags would somehow all show up in the index and be linked to the appropriate person.

Oh well, I'll have to give this some more thought someday...

Tom

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  • 4 years later...
Lennart Regebro

Is this still the case? It seems to be, at least I can't find any way of adding more names to a person. I find this very surprising. Not only married names, but there are many persons in my family tree, not to mention me, who has changed their names.

Also, it's quite typical that names are being shortened and used in different forms. We have seen a coouple of instances of low class girls being mentioned as "Greta" in the registries when born to poor parents, but when they marry somebody a bit richer they get recorded with the full name "Margareta".

In short, almost ever time somebody is mentioned in the old church records, the name is recorded slightly differently and spelled differently, and for completeness I think it is an obvious feature to be able to add this different names to the database and search them.

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Is this still the case? It seems to be, at least I can't find any way of adding more names to a person. I find this very surprising. Not only married names, but there are many persons in my family tree, not to mention me, who has changed their names.

Also, it's quite typical that names are being shortened and used in different forms. We have seen a coouple of instances of low class girls being mentioned as "Greta" in the registries when born to poor parents, but when they marry somebody a bit richer they get recorded with the full name "Margareta".

In short, almost ever time somebody is mentioned in the old church records, the name is recorded slightly differently and spelled differently, and for completeness I think it is an obvious feature to be able to add this different names to the database and search them.

You can search for Spouse in Advanced Search.

And name changes will always befuddle Genealogy. Personally, I base everything off the birth info. What anyone else does is up to them.

Scotty

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It does get very much less befuddled if you can record the name changes.

You can add a custom event for alternate names. You will have to define the event type in Admin > Custom Event Types if not available. My genie program (Family Historian) uses the 'NAME' as the tag but I do not know if this is common to other genie programs

s

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Lennart Regebro

You can add a custom event for alternate names. You will have to define the event type in Admin > Custom Event Types if not available. My genie program (Family Historian) uses the 'NAME' as the tag but I do not know if this is common to other genie programs

s

OK, that sounds like a good idea, I'll try that. Thanks!

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This is a general question about married surnames for women -

I just put my site up and immediately got a comment from a cousin about not being able to search for herself using her married surname, only her birth surname.

I made the choice to maintain the birth surnames in my database, and my genealogy s/w only lets me have one surname in there. But even if it let me have multiple surnames (for instance, TMG will let you put a married name in for a person, and will export it as a second NAME line in your gedcom), TNG takes that second NAME line and considers it a nickname in addition to any NICK entries you might have.

Ideally, I'd love for TNG to hold multiple names in its master name list, pointing to the same record with add'l names displayed not under the nicknames.

Has anyone dealt or thought about this issue at all? Input appreciated.

TomS

Hi Tom,

I don't think you want to add married names unless it is an exception to the convention because that would be a lot of work and you already have the information with the husband's name. However in working it through I created a MNAME event type under marriage. I left the NAME event associated with the individual for actual legal name changes not associated with marriage. To see an example of MNAME see:

http://www.cousinfolk.net/getperson.php?pe...amp;tree=weerts

But this isn't really what your cousin was concerned about, but hers is a valid concern. Here's an example: I only knew one of my grandparents as a child - Ida Weerts. If thats all I knew about my grandparents, it would be very difficult to find her on the website. The simple search would list a bunch of Ida's but be of no help in finding my grandmother. And I think I'd give up before I figured out how to do it with the advanced search.

So what I just did was add a married lastname on main sidebar menu and brought the advanced search logic to the simple search screen. See:

http://www.cousinfolk.net/

and search for Ida Weerts (Weerts in Married Lastname).

Below is an explanation of what to change. Make a copy of the original before you edit.

No data changes required. Does this help with the search issue?

Luke

I added a single line of code to each of three files to make this work. I changed index.php, topmenu.php, and search.php. If you use topmenu.html rather than php make the changes there. These changes were made to TNG 6.1.3 Find this context in topmenu.php:

<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnulastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mylastname" style="width: 140px;  height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>
            
<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnufirstname]; ?>:<br><input type="text" name="myfirstname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>
            
<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="mybool" value="AND"><input type="submit" name="search" value="<?php echo $text[mnusearchfornames]; ?>" style="font-size: 10px;"></td></tr>
Add this segment between second and third above:
<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[married].' '.$text[lastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mysplname" style="width: 140px;  height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>
So you have this:
<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnulastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mylastname" style="width: 140px;  height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnufirstname]; ?>:<br><input type="text" name="myfirstname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[married].' '.$text[lastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mysplname" style="width: 140px;  height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>            

<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="mybool" value="AND"><input type="submit" name="search" value="<?php echo $text[mnusearchfornames]; ?>" style="font-size: 10px;"></td></tr>
Similarly in index.php find this context:
<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnulastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mylastname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnufirstname]; ?>:<br><input type="text" name="myfirstname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="mybool" value="AND"><input type="submit" name="search" value="<?php echo $text[mnusearchfornames]; ?>" style="font-size: 10px;"></td></tr>
Add this segment between second and third above:
<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[married]. ' '.$text[lastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mysplname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>
So you have this:
<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnulastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mylastname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[mnufirstname]; ?>:<br><input type="text" name="myfirstname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><span class="fieldname"><?php echo $text[married]. ' '.$text[lastname]; ?>: <br><input type="text" name="mysplname" style="width: 140px; height: 20px; font-size: 11px;" size="14"></span></td></tr>

<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="mybool" value="AND"><input type="submit" name="search" value="<?php echo $text[mnusearchfornames]; ?>" style="font-size: 10px;"></td></tr>
In search.php just before all the session variables:

$_SESSION[tng_search_tree] = $tree;
$_SESSION[tng_search_lnqualify] = $lnqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_lastname] = $mylastname = trim( stripslashes($mylastname) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_fnqualify] = $fnqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_firstname] = $myfirstname = trim( stripslashes($myfirstname) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_idqualify] = $idqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_personid] = $mypersonid = trim( stripslashes($mypersonid) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_bpqualify] = $bpqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_birthplace] = $mybirthplace = trim( stripslashes($mybirthplace) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_byqualify] = $byqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_birthyear] = $mybirthyear = trim( stripslashes($mybirthyear) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_cpqualify] = $cpqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_altbirthplace] = $myaltbirthplace = trim( stripslashes($myaltbirthplace) );
Add this line of code which assumes gender is female if spouse name is filled in but gender is not set
if($mysplname !='' && $mygender =='') $mygender = 'F';
just before the session stuff so you have this:
if($mysplname !='' && $mygender =='') $mygender = 'F';
$_SESSION[tng_search_tree] = $tree;
$_SESSION[tng_search_lnqualify] = $lnqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_lastname] = $mylastname = trim( stripslashes($mylastname) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_fnqualify] = $fnqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_firstname] = $myfirstname = trim( stripslashes($myfirstname) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_idqualify] = $idqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_personid] = $mypersonid = trim( stripslashes($mypersonid) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_bpqualify] = $bpqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_birthplace] = $mybirthplace = trim( stripslashes($mybirthplace) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_byqualify] = $byqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_birthyear] = $mybirthyear = trim( stripslashes($mybirthyear) );
$_SESSION[tng_search_cpqualify] = $cpqualify;
$_SESSION[tng_search_altbirthplace] = $myaltbirthplace = trim( stripslashes($myaltbirthplace) );

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Just tried your change, Luke

So far, works very well, thank you!

s

Hi s,

Glad you like it. I think it adds a lot to the website. It actually explains the last name search field.

Luke

BTW, did you try putting names in all three boxes. It actually works.

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BTW, did you try putting names in all three boxes. It actually works.

Yes I did! It's great! 8)

I'm linking up photos of headstones at the moment and it makes finding the right person much easier

BTW I forgot to mention I'm using v.6.2.0 rc for anyone else who wants to try Luke's change

s

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Glad you like it. I think it adds a lot to the website. It actually explains the last name search field.

I've put it on my index.php page.

My topmenu links to Darrin's regular search page, where you can search for Married Name, although it's not as "obvious" there how to do it, since the Last name thing is down the bottom of that form, and you must select a gender - one more step.

Roger

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I've put it on my index.php page.

My topmenu links to Darrin's regular search page, where you can search for Married Name, although it's not as "obvious" there how to do it, since the Last name thing is down the bottom of that form, and you must select a gender - one more step.

Roger

Hi Roger,

Glad you like it.

This modification was made easy by the fact that Darrin had already done all the hard work on the advanced search-- as you say just not "obvious". I just started with that search and figured out the minimum variables needed for that search function and added a line in search.php to set the gender to 'F' if spouse lastname was filled in but gender was not. This prevents it from getting in the way of the proper functioning of advanced search.

Luke

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Hi Roger,

Glad you like it.

This modification was made easy by the fact that Darrin had already done all the hard work on the advanced search-- as you say just not "obvious". I just started with that search and figured out the minimum variables needed for that search function and added a line in search.php to set the gender to 'F' if spouse lastname was filled in but gender was not. This prevents it from getting in the way of the proper functioning of advanced search.

Luke

Hi Luke

I will use this modification, when I have uloaded to 6.2 next weekend.

But I have a question, that is off topic. How did You put the name of the day before a date?

Ex. "Thu, 22 Jul 1954"

Torben

The Devantier Family Tree

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello -

PAF has the ability to pass the married name via the tag "_MARNM" (defined by PAF). I have defined this tag via Custom Event Types, but I am at a loss as to how or what TNG does with this tag other than creating a custom event. I have re-imported my GEDCOM file containing the tags, but I see nothing in any of the database files for this event. I would like this tag to behave the same way as a Nickname or an AKA name, but it does not.

Does anyone have suggestions? I would like the maintenance of this tag to be done via my GEDCOM, not via TNG entries for each married name.

Regards,

T. McGuire

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Update on this Question

I sent Darrin a few lines of GEDCOM and found out that PAF generates the tag "_MARNM" as a level 2 custom tag. Once I edit the GEDCOM and change all "2 _MARNM" to "1 _MARNM", re-import the GEDCOM, the married names appear as expected. TNG only supports type 1 custom events.

I just need to remember to edit the GEDCOM before I import into TNG.

Regards,

T. McGuire

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Luke

I will use this modification, when I have uloaded to 6.2 next weekend.

But I have a question, that is off topic. How did You put the name of the day before a date?

Ex. "Thu, 22 Jul 1954"

Torben

The Devantier Family Tree

Torben,

I modified the SQL statements in the various php files where date is mentioned so that the SQL would calculate day of week and still use the same fieldname so that I didnt have to change any php code. So its calculated on the fly for each date field. Its not a particularly easy procedure finding all the right 'select' statements however. But if you're up to modifying several of the php files I can describe it in more detail. Let me know.

Luke

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  • 3 weeks later...
Michael Schrøder

Torben,

I modified the SQL statements in the various php files where date is mentioned so that the SQL would calculate day of week and still use the same fieldname so that I didnt have to change any php code. So its calculated on the fly for each date field. Its not a particularly easy procedure finding all the right 'select' statements however. But if you're up to modifying several of the php files I can describe it in more detail. Let me know.

Luke

Hi Luke

I will try your modifications as well, but how do you handle upgrades from Darrin with all these special mods ?

Michael

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When modding the TNG code I find it useful to keep a running list of the modifications I've made. That way when a new version is released I can work my way down the list.

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I added Lukes code for searching surnames but it won't work. After sending a search query the following failure will display:

SELECT p.ID, p.personID, lastname, lnprefix, firstname, p.living, p.branch, nickname, suffix, nameorder, title, birthplace, birthdate, deathplace, deathdate, LPAD(SUBSTRING_INDEX(birthdate, ' ', -1),4,'0') as birthyear, altbirthdate, LPAD(SUBSTRING_INDEX(altbirthdate, ' ', -1),4,'0') as altbirthyear, altbirthplace, p.gedcom, treename FROM chronic_people AS p LEFT JOIN chronic_trees on p.gedcom = chronic_trees.gedcom WHERE ( TRIM(CONCAT_WS(' ',spouse.lnprefix,spouse.lastname)) LIKE "%test%") AND p.gedcom="Franke" ORDER BY lastname, firstname, birthyear, altbirthyear LIMIT 50

I verified the code and find out that the fields spouse.lnprefix and spouse.lastname isn't part of the mysql table. Do I have to create these two fields in the people table?

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  • 4 months later...

Torben,

I modified the SQL statements in the various php files where date is mentioned so that the SQL would calculate day of week and still use the same fieldname so that I didnt have to change any php code. So its calculated on the fly for each date field. Its not a particularly easy procedure finding all the right 'select' statements however. But if you're up to modifying several of the php files I can describe it in more detail. Let me know.

Luke

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  • 3 weeks later...

There is a similar PHP ancestry program out there called "PHPGedView" (opensource) that allows you to search for people using either their maiden or married surname, using just the standard "First" and "Last" name search fields.

For example, enter "Mary Smith" and you get (for example):

Name                     Born                Died                      Spouse

Mary SMITH            2 Jun 1901      11 Oct 1984           Ronald BENNET

Mary SMITH           14 May 1976                                  George NORRIS

Mary CLARK           17 Mar 1873    18 Dec 1951           Henry SMITH

Notice that "Mary CLARK" is found because her married name is "Mary SMITH". Simple, eh?

The surname part of the search mechanism automatically searches the husband's surname (if female) and finds qualifying people (ie. her first name + husband's last name). This also works if she has a number of marriages. For example, Mary may have gone on to marry "John WILKES", although her married name now becomes "Mary WILKES", the search will still select her as "Mary CLARK" from the previous marriage, as that is where the previous husband's name of "SMITH" still exists.

This really useful feature makes it so easy to find female names, eliminating the married name problem completely - and using just the standard first and last name search fields!

But how? Can this magic mechanism be implemented into TNG using just the two basic "First" and "Last" name search fields?

I know exactly what I want to do, but not sure how to edit search.php to make this work. Any ideas?

Sure would make life easy when searching for female names!

Trevor.

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D.M. de Calonne

Hello Luke,

Maybe a (little) bit offtopic, but I noticed something while looking at your site.

On your site, I see a table with "spouse" in the search results.

How did you get it there? I can't find a setting in the admin-backend, so maybe it's a mod? Or is it something that comes with your married-surname-for-women-mod?

Greetings Dennis.

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I posted this info elsewhere, but it seems lost and should be of interest to people following this topic.

At some time or another most of us have wished we could search for someone by their married name or some other spelling of their surname, or that we could get more information in our search report. Here is what I've done:

Replaced the simple SEARCH function on the home page to:

· Allow you to search by married name

· Allow you to search by an alternate spelling of the birth or married name

· Allow you to include stored alternate spellings of the surname or married name in your search (the stored alternates are in an Excel spreadsheet, any webmaster can make one appropriate to the names on his site... I just copied my unique surnames into column 1 and identified alternates into column 3 thru whatever.) The user just clicks a checkbox on the index page to take advantage of the stored alternates.

· Display more information in the search results: like birthplace, spouse name, birth name

For searches by birth surname:

Individual, PersonID, Last Name, First Name, Birthdate, Birthplace, Spouse First Name

For searches by married name

First Maiden, PersonID, Married Name, Spouse First Name, Birthdate, Birthplace

This enhanced capability should make it a lot easier to find Sawdys who sometimes are called Soddys or Sawdeys or Leehans who are sometimes Lehans or Carberrys who are Corbreys or... you get the picture.

It should also allow you to find women when you do not know their married names. The search results will include all the alternatives and will be ordered by first name then by birth date.

If you need to search for Uncle Zeke and don't remember whether he was a Hatfield or a McCoy, just enter Hatfield in the surname field and McCoy in the alternate surname field.

I have stored a list of common alternates in a table. If you check the "Use Stored Alternates" box these alternates will be included as alternate Surnames in a normal Surname search or as Alternate Married Names if there is an entry in the Married name box.

The names actually used in the search are displayed at the top of the results page.

For those of you who worry about such things, the page is protected against hacker attempts to enter malicious information. Search times are a bit longer, but seem acceptable on my machine... let me know if you find otherwise. (I have about 7500 unique surnames and over 50,000 individuals in the northwesternpa database.)

I have used the newfound search capablities to locate and merge several individuals who were redundantly enterred under multiple spellings or maiden and married surnames. I hope someday to replace administrative FIND function with this functionality for the part of the function that finds people.

You can see this at NorthwesternPa.net.

Please let me know what you think of this. I have just placed this on my online site, so it needs a shakedown cruise. If it survives and if there is interest, I'll post the relevent scripts and patches. (a new script for the function, changes to index.php, a small directory of stuff to make the Excel stuff work, and an Excel spreadsheet.)

Jerry

Hello Luke,

Maybe a (little) bit offtopic, but I noticed something while looking at your site.

On your site, I see a table with "spouse" in the search results.

How did you get it there? I can't find a setting in the admin-backend, so maybe it's a mod? Or is it something that comes with your married-surname-for-women-mod?

Greetings Dennis.

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