Dear all,
I hope I understand your concerns, Helmut, and I completely agree with Philip.
I went through the guidance (Help:Name Fields for Czech Names (wikitree.com) and Help:Name Fields (wikitree.com)), summed up the existing rules and wrote a few comments on the rules. Since the guidance on Czech surnames takes the precedence before the general guidance, I am listing those rules first.
1. Females should use the correct naming conventions. This is the name they were given at birth (see below). Czech females will have a birth surname with -ová at the end of their surname (see exceptions). German females will have a birth surname with -in at the end of their surname (see exceptions). This is not to be confused with the Latin -in. (I think this a sound rule for Czech surnames used by ethnic Czechs. However, I am not so sure about the -in suffix for German surnames. It looks anachronistic, and I would recommend to drop the requirement for a German feminine suffix, but I defer to the native German speakers here.)
2. Use [the suffixes] for all names regardless of time period or what's written in the parish record. (My interpretation is that this rule does not explicitly mandate the post-1850 standard for all Czech surnames, but it implicitly supposes it by spelling the -ová ending in this standard and using the examples of the surnames in this standard.)
3. Use no Latin names even if the records were written in Latin (using –in.) This is not to be confused with German ending -in. (my interpretation is that Latin first names and surnames should be replaced with German or Czech forms based on ethnicity and guesswork)
4. Use their conventions instead of ours...These are meant to be the names they would prefer, not the names we prefer to call them...For example, English-speaking WikiTree users know William the Conqueror. But French-speakers know Guillaume le Conquérant. Even if 90% of current WikiTree users speak English, William should be Guillaume in our database because he himself spoke French. (my interpretation: replace German or Latin records of first names with Czech forms if the individuals are obviously Czech; and vice versa, Czech or Latin with German if they are German; this should also be the general rule for surnames, but there are special rules for LNAB below:)
5. [LNAB] is usually the formal name as it appears in official documents at the time of birth. However, it may not be exactly what appears in a birth record if
a. [t]here was a spelling mistake or error in the document, or
b. if the family name was more commonly spelled in a different way at the time of the birth [...] (my comment to both a. and b.: compared to what standard?)
What was the standard in, say, 1750? The scribes could refer to the Jesuit Bible translations from 1600s-1700s based on Bible of Kralice from 1613, which is surprisingly close to the 1850s standard, with diacritics and vowel length (most of the changes is just streamlining, w -> v, au -> ou, j -> í, ss -> š, g -> j). However, the scribes generally did not stick to the relatively high 1613 standard, especially when using Latin or German for the record as a whole. Digraphs reappeared and vowel length and diacritics mostly disappeared. Forcing the 1613 standard could be an option, but IMHO this would be even more hassle than applying the post-1850 standard.
What the people themselves would use: most of them were illiterate, but they would likely pronounce their names as we would pronounce them by reading the 1613 or post-1850 transcription. Czech phonology did not change much since 1400.
Fortunately, there is also rule 6:
6. Explain it all in the biography. (I always include the spelling from the records in the biography or in the "other surnames" field. I have a good experience with that, as the google search on wikitree is very efficient in finding the exact profiles that contain the exact spelling. Maybe this could be the way forward - including all of the variants somewhere in the profile.)
My recommendation is to maintain the post-1850 standard in Czech for first names and surnames and include all of the alternative recorded forms in the biography or other surnames sections (fully apply rules 1-4 and 6 with the exception of German feminine suffix, and interpret rule 5 in accordance with rules 2 and 4).
The advantages of a post-1850 transcription:
* it provides, for the most part, a one-to-one relationship between a letter and a sound, eliminating most alternative spellings
* it makes it easier to search for common ancestors and grow the common tree
* it makes it easier to check for spelling mistakes by googling for modern surnames or at kdejsme.cz
* articles and books by professional historians and genealogists use this standard, unless quoting the records directly
* it seems to be quite natural for Czech users at wikitree and other databases (by randomly looking at the family trees of Czech users)
The second option, i.e. enforcing the 1613 standard, would be even more difficult than keeping the post-1850 standard. I haven't seen much Middle English spelling in medieval profiles from England, anyway.
The third option, i.e. relaxing rules 5a. and 5b. and going for LNAB as recorded only (rule 5) would mean resigning to correcting mistakes and unifying the forms of surnames, and making the entries less searchable. Just imagine searching for and trying to connect all those Kregczi, Krejczi, Krejcži, Krejčí, Kregczirz, Krejčíř, Kregczirik, Kregczirzin, Kregczirziczka, Kregczirzikin, Kregczirzowa etc. Maybe the wikitree engine is good enough to connect them through the date of birth, maybe not.
I agree that it can be quite tough to encourage wikitreers, especially those with a limited knowledge of Czech, to use a standard post-1850 forms of the surnames. It is an ideal that is hard to achieve so help from native Czech speakers is necessary and much tolerance is in order, but I think it's a good rule, as the final goal is connecting our "private" trees to one big common tree.
My apologies for the super long post,
Best wishes and Merry Christmas!