What is the best way to enter surnames on Ancestry for exporting/importing Gedcom?

Question

For some reason when I import my gedcom file that I create on Ancestry,  I, Belskey-1, was not tagged as a match on my Gedcom Compare list.   My name is Corinne Lynne Belskey (maiden)  Kuhlmann (married).

Personally,  I like the maiden name before the married surname instead of ("name")  or "born as" or any of the other formats.  Since Ancestry doesn't have a data field for maiden names, (is there?)  I've been inputting all female surnames as "maiden" "married" without any punctuations. No dashes. I'm Belskey Kuhlmann.   

Apparently wikitree is unable to decipher this and is completely missing me in any gedcom compares.  

I sure wish these surnames would get some their universal world wide format issues resolved.  Everyone seems to do it a little different than the next.  Sigh.  

Any suggestions,  I have a lot of sources connected to my Ancestry profiles so I'd rather not manually enter them.  (650) profiles.

Answer 1

The primary name for women on Ancestry and other sites is their maiden name. Yours would be Corinne Lynne Belskey. Your married name will then show up as an alternate name of Corinne Lynne Kuhlmann. WikiTree would parse your name (Corinne Lynne Belskey Kuhlmann) as a single name with a first name, 2 middle names and a last name and will assume that Kuhlmann is your last name at birth. This will be a problem in matching all women in your GEDCOM.

I'm not sure how WikiTree could parse this. A GEDCOM has limited capabilities and formats so even if Ancestry had a field for maiden name it wouldn't be on the resulting GEDCOM because GEDCOM doesn't support this designator. There are preferred names and alternates and, as far as I know, that is all there is.

If I'm mistaken about the GEDCOM someone else will surely know.

Comments

I understand now.  Hmm,  well,  back to work editing my female profiles :)

I almost forgot my manners,  Thank You!