Anne Elisabeth Nielsdatter Friis alternative foreldre Niels Christensen Friie og Karen Knudsdatter i Århus

I researched our family tree here in the US when my son was little. But everyting came to a halt once we tried to go back to the "Old Country" The "...son" or ",,,,datter" made things very complicated. Several of the names you mention are part of my family or have been names which have been passed down through the generations. Could you help me in locating some more information, please. My father will be 98 in February and he only knows what he father told him as a child. It would be a wonderful gift to him to be able to show him the family tree.

Patronymic names makes it some easier since it automatically tells you what the fathers first name is.

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

Could you post a link to one of the profiles you are stuck on and some from "Old Country" might be able to help you?

It would be really great to have explicit patronymic naming support as part of Geni's naming conventions. In much of Scandinavia, the patronymic name became part of the surname, as in Nielsdatter. Elsewhere the patronymic is used as a "middle name". Then there are conflicts in naming convention, so Joseph the son of David Mendoza can be entered in Geni as any one of:

Joseph Mendoza
Joseph David Mendoza
Joseph of David Mendoza
Joseph de David Mendoza
Joseph 'David' Mendoza
Joseph "David" Mendoza
Joseph son of David Mendoza

And many more combinations of the above!

What should be the appropriate naming convention to use?

If there were a clear patronymic data field we would solve this!

Even better would be Geni warning if trying to merge two profiles with different patronymics; if father doesn't match patronymic entry on child, etc.

Views?

Geni should in my opinion not fabricate any facts, not even a married name, which for example got legalized first in 1923 in Norway and are a tradition that are almost gone again now.

Geni are by the way working on a full redesign of the name fields, so stay tuned.

That's a useful link, http://www.geni.com/people/Bj%C3%B8rn-P-Brox/285725352490006131 Brox - it becomes most fun when the Irish Vikings become Icelandic - I'm still waiting for the Mac Dóttir combination :-)

I so agree about not fabricating names, but think the same rule about accuracy should apply to not fabricating the removal of a married name from a woman who was actually known by it.

Do you know how to translate into English? I contacted the church parish in Foglo and have a transcript back to 1711 on the father's mother's side. On my father's father's side I can only go back to his grandparents. His Grandmother was Marie Friis and she married Nicolay Sorensen. They had a large dairy farm, of which I have an oil painting of. There is talk about the family loaning money to the Dutch government at one point. I have pictures of my great aunt Botilla Sorensen standing by their gravesite at the Ensted Kirkgard. I remember her address as Sonder Hostrup and later she moved to Abenraa. My father's mother was born in Foglo and moved to Stockholm when she was 16 where she saved up enough money to come to the US via Detroit and then on the San Francisco. I just started on this yesterday and so I will work on the family tree in the next couple of days. Nicolay had a brother Jorgen he had a son with Anna. His name was Hans.