Searching surnames

Started by Michele Maiden Perry on Thursday, January 24, 2013
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I am trying to research ancestors with my maiden name of "Maiden". Anyone searching for that name will certainly commiserate with me over having to pore through multitudes of entries for "maiden name unknown" and others of its kind. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to enter the surname "Maiden" into a search field which will eliminate all those OTHER entries?

And on a similar topic: having started my family tree on another site, I developed the habit of entering women with their birth surname, not their married name. This doesn't seem to be a universal practice on this site. Although Geni does have a way to do this, its terminology differs. I'm new to Geni Pro; are there guidelines somewhere that explain how to properly enter people (especially females)? While it may seem intuitive, I must confess that it's not what I've been accustomed to.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried the link, and because of the variety of ways people enter names, I'm having the same problem. I think that proves the point that there should be some consistency in how data is entered. I'm sure that credentialed genealogists follow certain rules. Anybody care to share what they might be and how I can access records that conform to these rules?

Hi Michele

The "rules" are set by the software. You can customize your tree display here:

http://www.geni.com/account_settings/name_preferences

There are Naming Guidelines in various Projects and on the Geni Community Wiki:

http://wiki.geni.com/index.php/Naming_Conventions

Name guidelines are of course based on language, time and place. What area are you most concerned with?

Thanks, Erica. This is just the kind of information I was looking for. I can see now that I have much to explore on Geni.com. Although I have done a fair amount of work previously on my family tree, it was with two other sites' software. It was my mistake to assume that all would use the same "naming conventions". I'm looking forward to checking out the links you provided as I begin again to work on my family tree!

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