Diacritics in name fields?

+5 votes
194 views

Adelaide Bois is my current obsession. Or Adélaide. Or Adélaïde. All of those spellings show up in records.

Should names be entered with diacritics, if that's what the baptismal record uses, even if other records do not? In this case, there is no baptismal record yet (technically, we don't know her LNAB), but the name on the marriage record reads "Adélaïde," with all the diacritics.

We know how varied 17th, 18th, and 19th century names can be in written records, and diacritics are part of that. I believe most search engines can deal with diacritics now (and I know how to produce them, like the accent aigu in my name), but I want to be clear on the style guidelines.

(Edit: I believe I found the answer a couple of levels down into related questions, but I can't deleted this post, can I.)

Edit: Here is the G2G thread on accents in French names: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/608919/accents-for-french-canadian-names. I'm going to assume that this applies to the tréma (dieresis) as well even where we no longer would use one, such as Louïs.

WikiTree profile: Adelaïde Bois
in Policy and Style by Véronique Boulanger G2G6 (9.5k points)
edited by Véronique Boulanger
Hi Véronique. I'm glad you found the answer. Rather than deleting the question, the best thing to do would be to add another comment including a link to the answer you found. That way other people who see your question in future can be led to the solution as well.

1 Answer

+7 votes
 
Best answer

The diacritics actually reflect pronunciation, so should be included, regardless of whether or not each writer used it.  Adélaïde phonetically would be pronounced a-day-la-id (to render it into English similar phonetics, the ending E is silent), ie 4 syllable name.  Without the diacritics, it would come out a-de-laid, 3 syllable name, which is obviously incorrect to anyone who speaks French.

In the Côté example of the other post, the earlier version of the name was Costé.  The s disappeared and was replaced by the ô.

As you said, diacritics are haphazard in their usage in records, and the further back you go in time, the less we see them.  Mostly because clergy often learned to write in Latin first, which language doesn't have such.  They got introduced into written language with the invention of the printing press, as far as I remember from my earlier research on the subject.  One also finds the tréma used on the letter U (ü) in names like Roüer for instance, to make sure the letter got read as U and not N.  But that was another of these haphazard usages.

As a note, looking at her marriage record, there are 2 witnesses named, listed as friends, one of them named Michel Bois.  Might she have been a foundling raised by the Bois family?  A search in notarial records might clarify this, long shot to find, but not impossible.  I've come across similar issue with another member, who actually found the notarial record involved then.

by Danielle Liard G2G6 Pilot (672k points)
selected by Susan Laursen

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