Genealogy Chat

INSTEAD OF USING THE WORD UNKNOWN FOR ANCESTORS YOU CAN'T NAME, USE THE FOLLOWING WHERE APPROPRIATE. WHEN EDITING THIS PERSON ,...IN THE 'FIRST NAME ' BOX USE THE FOLLOWING " An unknown spouse of Joe Bloggs or Joan Bloggs as appropriate." IN THE 'SURNAME' BOX INSERT BLOGGS. THIS THEN ASSOCIATES THE UNKNOWN PERSON WITH A SURNAME ON THE VARIOUS NAMES LISTS WITHIN GENESREUNITED. jACK CRICHTON

Sounds like a good idea. I must admit to using Unknown Unknown in the beginning and started using both names if I knew a female had been married and freeBMD listed two males. Kristeen

Ok, But what if your name is Bloggs ?! Someones going to be very annoyed with this ! Elaine x( not Bloggs - but related to Pratts - who also got upset)

Elaine ,I think Jack means use the surname of the person they married rather than exactly bloggs ie husband of "Elaine Smith" "Husband ofKim Judd" etc then if you search the surname at least you get the connection name... Kim

If you do not know the name of a person then why put them on here. Why not wait until you know the name and then add it. Mary

Can I also add, that when you export a GED file if you have an illegetimate child , it comes up with 'unknow unkown' for father, I have umpteen on my tree were they married a bit 'late', but in theory I only have 4, it also comes up when males and females have intermarried. Only does this on GR not on a family tree programme. Kim

This is an update of information found out yesterday. There was a thread about an online Introduction to Genealogy course. On there I found out that the Genealogy conventions are that birth names for women are entered in parentheses (). In this example, your ancestor Mary Elizabeth's maiden name is unknown and she is married to John DEMPSEY. Enter: Mary Elizabeth () or Mary Elizabeth () DEMPSEY I have just amended my tree instead of having a list of names in UNKNOWN I now have () ALLEN and () Warhurst. So much better, I think. P'raps that why it's a convention :) Kristeen

Part of the problem is that if you are importing a gedcom file and don't have any details listed as a partner for someone who has children it will automatically put an 'Unknown Unknown' box in on your tree and then not let you delete it because it has children!!!!!!!! Trudy

Trudy, If you put in the surname box () BLOGGS and in the first name () then uploading won't put Unknown Unknown because it has data in there. At least that what I think the convention means. Kristeen