Pre-1500 Danish Merges and Patronymic Surnames

Question

There are a number of pre-1500 Danish merges awaiting completion.  However, I believe most of them have the surnames incorrect.  Danish patronymic naming should have the father's first name followed by "sen" for son and "datter" for daughter.  See https://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Danish_Surnames

Most of the pending merges have westernized spelling and use "son" and "dotter" in the surname rather than the correct spelling. Some of the males have an extra letter 's' in the surname.

Given that the merging instructions state: "Do not complete this merge unless Surname-1 is the correct Last Name at Birth. If Surname-2 is correct, click here to reverse the merge. If neither is correct, change the Last Name at Birth on Surname-1 before doing the merge​" I am unable to complete the merges as I can not change the surnames.

I don't see a Danish project, but did notify the profile managers at the free-space page for Scandinavian Nobility about the issue in one particular case.  I'm not Danish at all, but was working as an arborist to clear some pre-1500 pending merges and encountered this problem. I'm mainly posting this so that those interested in these early Danish profiles are alerted to the issues.

Edited to add that care must be taken as Swedish names do end in "dotter" and "son".

Answer 1

A Leader could adopt the profiles and correct the spelling of the LNABs.

Answer 2

Just make sure that the profiles that you want to change are Danish and not Swedish. Swedish surnames use -son and -dotter. You wrote on the profile of Bengt Folkesson and wanted to change the surname to Folkesen but he was born in, and died in Sweden. Swedish father Danish mother.

Comments

Thanks.  I deleted my comment there and also completed the merge, which I assume you were unable to do without pre-1500 authority..

 Like I said I mainly wanted to alert those with an interest to these issues and to especially alert them to the number of pending merges. It looks like several have been processed.

Since you have knowledge of the differences, may I suggest you apply for pre-1500 certification and help to process the number of Scandinavian pending merges?  There are more to be proposed as seen under the many similarly named spouses for these individuals. With your  knowledge you could propose the merges while giving the reason for the correct spelling.  It would help us arborists a great deal in working to keep wikitree "healthy." And it would help Leaders make the correct direction merges.

But I do want to point out that correcting the names to the proper spelling shouldn't be considered changing the names "too much" which you advised against on Folkesson's page when you wrote "Besides... it is not good to change the names too much." Limiting name changes should never stop you from changing names to the correct spelling as directed in the merges dialog. Also, when there is a common misspelling of a name, it is good to list that spelling under Other Last Names so that the profile will be found when searching under that particular spelling. That is why I put Knutsdotter under Knutsdatter-80's other last names and which you removed. I probably should have added a note in the bio area regarding the correct spelling and why Knutsdotter is incorrect-- while still leaving it in the other last names field for search reasons.

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Hi Donna,

I do have pre-1500 access. And by not changing too much I mean that maybe we better leave it datter instead of changing it to dotter in case we don't have any hard evidence on the spelling. These are really early profiles we are talking about and there were not many set rules when it came to spelling back then. But otherwise there should not be any common misspellings if people just make sure they write in the correct language:

Datter - Danish and Bokmål (Norwegian.

Dotter - Swedish

Dottir - Icelandic

Aren't the slot for "Other Last Names" for what other names the person really had? I mean... I am Svensson no matter if I am in Norway, Sweden or Denmark. I would not start calling myself Swensen just because I was in Denmark. Frankly, I would be a little offended... Like calling a Scot English ...

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If you already have pre-1500 status then I'm surprised you didn't just complete the merge for Folkesen then.  Wikitree policy is to only have one profile for each individual

In both the Acadian and Louisiana groups which I work as a Project Coordinator we use the "Other Last Names" more often for alternative spellings of a surname. Since few people were literate in the times we deal with (mostly 1700-1900), the names show up spelled all sorts of different ways-- depending often on the clerk who is writing the record and how they "heard" the name. In the Acadian project we have standardized the spelling according to that used in a reputable source... just so that we're not all over the place in our LNAB.  But in actuality  even siblings may spell their name differently from one another when all they know to write is their name.  So we use the "other last names" as a place to put the alternative spellings. An example is my ancestor's who were recorded as Fruge, Frugé, Frezia, Frugia, Frejia, and many more. My German ancestors are pretty standardized on their own with the only variants being whether umlauts, ß or ss is used. Although sometimes a spelling is Americanized.

We end up with so many duplicates mostly because people do not search under alternative spellings.  And then there are some alternative spellings that I would never dream up, but apparently the clerk "heard" the name and spelled it how he heard it.  Using the "other last names" in this way leads to more effective searches and fewer duplicates to end up having to merge.