Find-A-Grave and Bielefeldt-30 work-around?

Question

In working with many German ancestors and with trying to source Find-a-Grave profiles, I have difficulty with naming. An example would be Bielefeldt-30. In FG, and on his grave marker, he is listed as Fredrick Bielefeldt. So, easily enough, I found him in Family Search with that FG memorial and then drilled down through the sources to find that he was Christian Frederick Werner Bielefeldt. How do others resolve this issue on his profile so descendants on both sides of the Atlantic can trace the line? In this case, I changed the order of his names so his profile would show for the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Ellington, Outagamie, Wisconsin to see if that would work, but now the Wiki profile is inaccurate. What is the correct solution? Most FG managers reject a suggestion as the memorial gives the name as they were known in the US.

Comments

I added tags for our German project so that they can weigh in...

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Thank you for this suggestion, Robin. Yes, after five years of working on cemetery profiles documenting a couple thousand German-heritage people in Wisconsin, I felt it was time to discuss the issue.

I know it is difficult to create additional fields in profiles, but my "hope" was that since this is so prevalent that Wiki could discuss, rather than dismiss, the issue.

I'll follow your suggestion and we'll see what happens.

Answer 1

I would use the Christian Frederick Werner Bielefeldt as his official name on WikiTree and use the Frederick Bielefeldt as the preferred name and current last name.

Comments

However, his given name at birth appears to be Friedrich, not Frederick, which was clearly his preferred name after coming to America.

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His proper first name should be "Christian Friederich Werner"; his preferred name is "Frederick"

The middle name field should be left blank.

See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Germany_Project_Name_Field_Guidelines#Proper_First_Name

Answer 2

I just took a quick look at my records Bev and in the past 5 years, since I started keeping these records, I have made over 3,000 suggestions to update the information on Find A Grave Memorials.  I have been refused less than 15 times.

As long as you can document your suggested change, the vast majority of Find A Grave Managers will take your suggested changes.  But there are always a very few who have a distorted view on what is right or wrong.  At least you tried with them.  In those cases, I document that an attempt to change the FG Memorial was made in the Profile I was working on.

Answer 3

In the biography part, put the spelling of the correct name and any other spellings you have found. Same thing at FAG.

Answer 4

Using the middle name is a common practice in the German culture. I could never find records for my parental grandfather until I stumbled across this fact. I also discovered that I'd been calling my aunt by her middle name all my life, never knowing she had another name!

Comments

Yes, same in my family. I found my great grandfather's full name from the Wisconsin Marriages Records the Historical Society had on-line. Great Grandma Bertha's name was there with the right date, but who was that man?

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The concept of "middle name" in Germany is not the same as  here in the U.S. It took me a while to learn this.

Their baptismal name might be "Johann Heinrich" and this name might appear on other church records in Germany, but they actually went by the second of the two names, especially after emigration to the U.S., where it was also anglicized (in this case, to "Henry").