Pre-1600 German LNAB - again

Question

Are we taking things with house names a bit too far? Example: the Zähringen family. The literature has it that the Herzöge von Zähringen died out with Berthold V in 1218. Both the Markgrafen von Baden from the 11th century on and the Herzöge von Teck from the 12th century until the 15th descended from the Zähringer, however, have been consistently named Baden and Teck respectively - except on WikiTree where Zähringen continues to live on. Even in 20th century profiles like "Margarita Alice Thyra Victoria Marie Louise Scholastica (Zähringen) of Yugoslavia (1932 - 2013)" when a LNAB is easily accessible. (For the record it would be Markgräfin von Baden since she was born after the Weimar Republic law abolishing the privileges of nobility but incorporating the former titles as legal parts of the family name.)+In my opinion well established houses like Teck and Baden should be listed under these house names and not the names of distant ancestors.

Answer 1

I have not looked at the case but I think I understand the type of problem. We have a kind of norm of sticking to one name for a male line for as long as it makes sense, but we have to always be ready to break those. We do not need to have everyone in the same medieval male line having the same LNAB, and we certainly should not ignore norms which exist outside Wikitree.

I think in such cases we need to propose "turning point" people who established a new branch, with a new well-known name.

Answer 2

Thanks Helmut, I mostly agree with this, and it is what is often found on WikiTree anyway.  Many of the Markgrafs von Baden have Baden as their Last Name at Birth.

A similar issue is when a dynasty changes country/language. 

For instance many of the early 20th century British royal family are found under Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, when by that time they were thoroughly anglicised and lately I think they should really be under the English name Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.  See this profile as an example.  (However I am sure I've said the opposite in the past).

Answer 3

I have no expertise on German names, but it would seem to me that even the principle of sticking to one name for a male line as long as it makes sense violates the WikiTree principle of "use the name they would have used."  

Once one passes back into eras, or across into cultures, where the naming pattern in patronymic, one has to forego one LNAB across generations, anyway.  I would often picture the best place to identify dynasties across generations as a free-space profile or linked category.

Comments

I agree, but maybe wrongly I was reading this as a question about earlier periods when many of these groups had no known family name. In those cases, for better or worse, Wikitree tends to use dynasty names. Sometimes historians have already invented one (or several).