Projects Profiles from 1500 until now , naming convention ??

Question

Hi all, 

As a member of the Euroaristo and several other projects I came across something, it seems that now members are changing (Redirecting) some perfectly correct last names at Birth for After 1500 until now profiles into the Pre-1500 Euroaristo LNAB convention way , correct LNAB were changed to ones without the, for these profiles, perfectly correct prefixes. 

The Euroaristo Project now has sub projects for After-1500 until now profiles as well, one of the goals mentioned at the After-1500 until now British Isle group is : Get the right LNAB, and there is a link added to the proper use of naming fields but also to the Name Fields for European Aristocrats., so I guess the use their convention instead of ours for these profiles are fine to use, but so is the Europian Aristocrats way ? (for the Euro after-1500 until now project , the Pre-1500 Euroaristo convention is added) Now if this is confusing to me already, I can imagine it must be very confusing to many and especially to new members.

So this should be made more clear I think, especially because it looks like now perfectly correct LNAB (with the proper prefixes !) for After-1500 profiles are changed back to the Euroaristo Pre-1500 names. .

Because many projects are working very hard on trying to find sources for and correct many LNAB for many of these After-1500 until now profiles,than if these correct last names are ones with prefixes I foresee many problems if these names are going to be changed back by members into the ones without the prefixes. 

So I think it is very important we now and all projects together finally decide and hopefully can agree on using just one way of naming for these After-1500 until now groups,  as far as I know most projects are already using the  their convention instead of ours for at least these after-1500 until now profiles, so maybe we all could , and for this very large group , should decide to use just one ''rule'' to prevent confusion and more of these name changes (redirects) ?  

 

Comments

In general, people need to be very conservative about changing any existing LNAB. The reason is that each change forces a re-direct. Those numerous changes then becomes a huge drain on WikiTree resources.

---

Most of the more experienced members will know , but the newer members maybe won't, and that's also why I think we need to be very clear as projects and all together , what convention is ok to use for profiles from the After-1500 until now group, if one project says this and the other something different people get confused and this could cause many problems, that could be prevented if we all are clear about this.

The use their convention instead of ours is very clear , so for this huge group of profiles from all over the world maybe this could work best ? 

Answer 1

Thanks Bea for asking this question or posing this problem.  I think there are 3 issues here -

1) As Steven has identified there is the problem of people changing names, on profiles that are being actively managed presumably without contacting the manager first.  The communication before editing page http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Communication_Before_Editing does say that we should make contact before any non-trivial change to a name field.  Perhaps we all need to follow this recommendation?

2) I would suspect that there would be very few profiles in the New Netherlands or Dutch Cape Colony projects that overlap with the European Aristocrats project (perhaps I'm wrong),  So if people are changing these profiles perhaps it is because the Euroaristo project is too broad in who it includes as an aristocrat (particularly for European 1500 - Present)?  Or is it that some people see a 'von' or 'van der' in a name and assume they must be an aristocrat and change the name accordingly?

3) With the vexed problem of the EuroAristo naming policy.  I've had a look at old records and this idea of not using  name prefixes was first proposed in 2011 for reasons that aren't quite clear, though I think it might have had something to do with some form of consistency.  There was quite a lot of discussion at the time but there was a recognition that it could be a problem for some European names.

I would argue that in fact it's not easy to just use their convention instead of ours with many of these profiles.  Most of the royal families of Europe had a house name (Hohenzollern, Bourbon, Welf, Wettin, Habsburg etc, which is often used as the LNAB) but in fact they didn't use that name for themselves.  The Hohenzollern dynasty were very proud of their name, but weren't known as von Hohenzollern but von Preussen (or Preußen) See here for instance https://archive.org/stream/gothaischerhofk01unkngoog#page/n127/mode/2up  So I think choosing an appropriate name for many of these royals and aristocrats, particularly those from places in Europe where prefixes are commonly used is a major headache.

However I do notice that the Wikitree naming standards have changed somewhat and the European Aristocrat and Welsh naming guidelines only apply for those profiles prior to 1600AD, http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Fields#Medieval_Profiles which I presume means that names of profiles after that date can follow other naming standards.  I'm not against this idea, but I don't remember it being discussed, so perhaps this change needs to be publicised more?

Comments

As regards 1, you have to be on the TL to change an LNAB.  If LNABs are being broken, it's mostly PMs who're doing it.  If the rest of us could do it, a lot more would get fixed than broken.

Bad LNABs are everywhere, easy to fix on sight, if they're orphans, but if you have to come across as the LNAB Police, well just leave it for somebody else.

---

1) No, it is not policy to ''only'' contact managers before any substantial changes to LNAB-fields within projects as the Dutch Cape Colony project - it is simply not feasible and in fact a hindrance - once a validated (i..e. image and subsequent transcription [or in the case of no image a valid transcription] has been found, the ''active'' project members try and get the validated LNAB edited a.s.a.p. and the profiles then protected.

2) There are many profiles looming on the horizon were in fact the naming conventions will clash because of the ruling aristocracy that was  part of the top level management of the Dutch East India Company - many of them travelled to the settlements as explorers or as visitors with vested interests ... as example see: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van_Rheede-24

3) Yes indeed they (though I'm certainly not well versed as far as this subject matter goes) mostly did not refer to themselves with LNsAB such as ''from [the house of / dynasty of] Prussia'' (as an example). The toponymic LNsAB that became into swing [if I'm historically correct on this - I'm not sure]  in the 16th and 17th centuries should not be confused with the various forms such as "Von Hohenzollern'' or "de Savoye" ... indeed I have seen quite a few profiles with LNsAB that qualifies as "prickly" ... I have no answer for that though I have seen some Euroaristo profiles where the LNAB have been carefully thought over ...

---

I see that I have asked a related question before ...

---

Hi John and thank you for the answer, 

1. I agree of course, but as you know not all members are aware of this especially new members who have to first get familiar with and learn so many things about Wikitree it might take a while before they notice this one. 

2. I have no idea how large the overlap would be exactly of course, but working a lot on these projects I do know that some immigrants / emigrants and other profiles were from very well known families, maybe even some Royals, Aristocrats, Nobility or Gentry. But for most of them (the after 1500 until now ones) we can find church records and /or charters or (notarial) deeds, letters where the correct names, so the names they used themselves during their lives and names they were born baptized with, are mentioned , and pretty consistent, so there's no real big problem (no headache ;) ) to use their convention instead of ours for these profiles. Which for many Pre-1500 profiles of course is a different story.  

3. Looking at the Welsh naming guidelines it seems this also is more according the use their instead of ours convention ? So maybe for the Euroaristo profiles (see the answer above) if the list with Royal Houses/ names is presented to make sure these will be used by members of the project for profiles part of these families (to stay consistent), but that it is made (more) clear that for other new and /or later profiles it is ok and maybe even preferred to use their convention instead of ours (if there are good sources showing people used the names with prefixes of course) . 

Indeed naming standards have changed, that's also why we now have the use their conventions instead of ours guideline , and I'm glad to hear your not against this idea , indeed this change probably needs to be published more, but should be more clear or explained at the project pages as well, the British Isles are a bit more clear already, but maybe the importance of the use their convention instead of ours could be added or explained there as well for the After-1500 until now group ? 

Maybe all projects for this group of After-1500 until now profiles could or should add something about this guideline at the project pages to make sure all members visiting those pages will immediately get a clear picture and are aware of this guideline ? 

Of course this is the main reason why I started this G2G , it's important we all are consistent and very clear about what guidelines/ naming conventions Wikitree members should use for this immense group of profiles. 

 

---

I do think that EuroAristo naming conventions for medieval times are sensible and useful. After all, in those times people moved from one castle to another and changed their name; their fief was changed by the ruler and their name changed also; they owned three castles and depending where they were at the time they did something resulting in a written record their name was different; and so on. To use a dynastic name as LNAB and list all the other names used in different fields in theory makes it much easier to consolidate all those records.

The issue is to pinpoint the time when people actually started to use a particular name with the predicate and that may vary from culture to culture.

---

Yes I agree and I have no problems with the Euroaristo convention for the earlier profiles because this was decided a few years ago, and indeed is useful and more easy to use ( no more headaches about what name we should use ) but now , with things changed and only for the (about) After-1500 until now profiles, maybe we could and should decide to draw some line and be clear about if it is ok to use the their convention instead of ours guideline ? With for the Euroristo profiles that belong to the different Royal Houses still as exception ? 

---

Hi John , 

Love the answer especially the however part of course ;)  Of course I understand the major headache you're talking about , but...many of us already are working with these headaches for so long now , one headache more or less probably won't ''hurt'' and of course if there are no sources we could ask , just like we normally would in a G2G what the best LNAB would be for these profiles . 

So what do you think is it ok for Euroaristo profiles from later dates and with the exception of the ones from the Royal Houses to use their convention instead of ours ? 

I think it is a way to prevent future project ''clashes'' or projects feeling compromised or forced to change their spelling LNAB conventions like Philip pointed out . 

---

As I said I can't remember it being discussed but the date for when profiles should be named according to European Aristocrat has been set at before 1600.

Can we accept that any profile after 1600 can be named according to other naming standards?  I'm not sure about other European countries, but this seems to fit with Helmut's assessment of when German speaking nobility started using prefixes consistently.

---

Accepted of course John , this seems a great solution and will I''m sure prevent many problems , if we all could put this somewhere and clear on our project pages, members in no time will notice and maybe it could be added somewhere here as well Naming Fields , I hope we all can agree this is a big step forward and much more clear for all Wikitree members :) 

So a BIG thank you to all of you who responded here and if someone has serious objections we of course would like to hear this as well .. 

---

I don't think it would hurt to change that to 1500.  The English had stopped using "de" by then.  We have other boundaries at 1500 and we're about to get another one.

---

Thanks for the input RJ , I personally think indeed maybe this won't hurt either and guess the other boundary you mean is this one : G2G Should the cut-off date for more-protected profiles be the year 1000? 1200? 1500? 

But I'm already really happy we could agree on the Pre-1600 boundary of course, for me the most important reason to bring this up, was to make it more and very clear for all WT members what guidelines /naming conventions they should use and where the boundry lies for the Euroaristo way of naming, and of course and maybe even more important , to prevent possible project ''clashes'' because of confusion about where the  boundary lies.

Answer 2

I would tend to agree as German speaking nobility did start to use the "von", "zu" and "von und zu" pretty consistently by the early 17th century. My starting point for German speakers would be about 1600.

Comments

Thank you Helmut, I think it is so important because if we, for this huge group of profiles use these on some points so totally different conventions it is very and far too confusing for especially new members.

Answer 3

I have foreseen that this moment would come and I have no clear cut answer other than that the
Euoraristo LNAB spelling convention is the exception to the rule and that the other projects (Dutch Cape Colony, New Netherland etc..) should not in any way be compromised and forced to change their spelling LNAB conventions.

Comments

Thank you Philip, indeed the Euroaristo LNAB convention is the exception to the rule , but what I understood was , this was decided a long time ago and especially for the also very large Pre-1500 group (?) and because of the many duplicates, this was the most easy and  maybe even more important , most clear way for members.

Now for the After-1500 until now group I think it is not necessary to keep using this convention, there is a very clear list of Royal Houses/names, so if this list is presented as the exception to the use their convention instead of ours rule for the After-1500 until now profiles of the Euroaristo project (British Isles) I think it is more clear for members than with all the mixed info that's now presented.

And more important this is much more clear for new members as well and would prevent names we now don't protect (because we are not supposed to protect all names of course) are getting changed (Euroaristo way) or profiles created by members with primary sources that show the prefixes , but where people leave them out because of the confusion.

---

It has been my understanding all along that this was a EuroAristo-specific convention (the dropping of prefixes from surnames) and NOT systemwide.

I would be extremely unhappy to see my deVeaux ancestors -- who were not aristocrats -- have their name butchered.