How to enter a person with multiple last names or spellings and unknown birthplace

Question

My mother lost her parents at age 5 and was raised by her maternal grandparents. She told me her grandparent's name was "Americanized" when they immigrated to the US.

They took on the last name of Pastron after immigrating from "Russia". I have not been able to trace anything before 1915 when their second child (my mother's mother) was born in Lorain, OH.

I have not yet entered their names into Wiki Tree. How do I clarify in the Wiki Tree that my mother's grandfather was born under a different last name? How do I enter the multiple spellings I have uncovered of her grandmother's maiden name? I haven't been able to determine which maiden name spelling is accurate, if any.

I am guessing I use Unknown/Unknown for both of their birth names (first and last) and then enter the first names they used before they later changed their first names in America? (Marie to Mary and Jakob to Jacob?) Or perhaps Marie Unknown for birth and then Mary and Marie as nicknames? Likewise Jakob Unkown and then Jacob as nickname and Pastron as his other surname.

I am certain Marie is a middle name with her first being Katrina or Katerina or Katrinka. Based on what my mother told me, she dropped her first name and used her middle name of Marie as her first name, changing if from Marie to Mary after arriving in Amercia because she was less embarrassed by it.

As to their place of birth, Eastern Europe was blurry. They spoke nothing except German yet they identifed Russia as where they were they came from on the 1920 census. So do I put Unknown in the place of birth and include the Russia information in the comments? Or do I enter Russia as their birthplace even though where ever they were born may not have been identified as Russia at the time of their birth?

Answer 1

The name from the birth certificate should go into the LNab field. All other spellings you write into the field "Other last names".

The same with the given names. The given name in the birth certificate write into the field "Proper first name"; the preffered name into the field "preferred Name". All different spellings are going into the field "Other nicknames".

If you don't have the birth certificate use the name on the oldest document you found. If you cannot identy a birth name use Unknown.

If you don't know anything about their birth place, but you have an indication that they were born in Russia, write Russia in the birth place, even if they are native Germans. A lot of Germans lived in Russia at that time.