General Chat

Hello :)

I am quite new to this but I wondered if you could help me? When I enter people into my tree do I enter their maiden name or married name?

Thanks! Any other tips appreciated.

Kirsty :)

you enter there maiden name lovie
Rachx

you can enter both there will be records for before and after they got married if thats any help nice to meet you

i've entered both and come up with matches am i doing anything wrong

I think mostly its the maiden name used well anyway thats what I do maybe I am wrong lol

we can't both be doing it wrong so we must be right

I dunno lol we must be? Sorry Kirsty we aren't helping much

I always use the name the birth was registered under ie maiden name

He he, well I am still slightly confused but will enter maiden names for time being! Cheers :) Gave me a laugh anyway! ;)

its nice to give you laugh not havin much luck elsewhere

glad we made you laugh Kirsty lol we are like a double act

I figured :) I think the key is to not take life to seriously, take me for instance, I SHOULD be cleaning the tile cement off from round my bath, however instead I am searching through a rather addictive site looking for long lost relatives :) MUCH more fun! Thanks again :)

anytime x

your welcome

hows things going

Techincally, you enter the maiden name. On the tree that you can keep offline (I use PAF) there is a space for "married name" which helps.

If most people enter women by their maiden names that's where the matches will come from. I am quite suspicious of any tree I see that has the wife entered under her married name. It makes me think that the researcher is either not taking it seriously or does not care about the female lines.

Also, what if she marries more than once? Then what would you do? One of my trollopes of a gr gr grandmother married twice and nearly married three times. I'm still interested in her - no matter who she married as she is my gr gr grandmother. So in effect I have no option but to enter her under her maiden name. It's logical.

Jill

i was thinking of death records which would have married name on

Women in family history should, as Jill said, always be entered under their maiden names.

In early genealogy people rarely stayed married to the same person for their whole lives. If you ever get to do any medieval genealogy you will see that death from battle, illness or childbirth meant many marriages for many people. So on family trees females always keep their birth names no matter how many husbands they may later have.

Sue

unfortunately i'm new a this an have not studied geneology

No worries Bambi - it gets easier. Could be worth visiting your local library and checking out their family history books. There are quite a selection out there and it's worth having a read to see how others do things. Most of them seem to be written by "professionals" whereas the bulk of us on here are amateurs. Always worth getting the official line on these things, plus there will be all sorts of useful info in the books too.

I do know what you mean about death records - they don't make sense otherwise. And, I don't know about others but I follow all the lines in my family - women included. Some genealogists only follow the male line and just seem to ignore the women. Personally, I find that a bit odd.

I mean, you know who your mother is, and her mother, and her mother - but how can anyone be 100% sure of the male line? I trust the female line a bit more than the male line.

Does that make sense?