Changing my last name at birth

+4 votes
356 views
When I signed up for WikiTree, I put my last initial instead of my last name at birth. Now I want to change it to my last name. It says that it will delete a lot of information. What is the complete list of things that will be lost? Should I wait until this month's sourcerers competition is over? Will I lose my badges? My tree? Or is there a different thing that I should do instead to change my name?

Thanks.
in WikiTree Help by Leila Keller G2G6 Mach 1 (18.3k points)
retagged by Ellen Smith
just curious, what would happen if you created another profile for yourself with your full last name, then merged them?  

Possibly this is a very bad idea in terms of WikiTree resources.  Just waiting for an expert to tell us both!

Cheers

Shirlea
You could just add your last name in the Current Last Name field.  That'd leave the "K" as the LNAB (so it will show in parentheses), but that way nothing else will change.
Alright. I think I'll do that. Thanks, Melanie
Could you explain this further? If we accidentally put the wrong LNAB (last name at birth) when entering a profile, is there a way to keep the profile while changing the last name at birth. I'm not sure what the "K" means in Melanie's post.
Edward - when Leila signed up to Wikitree, instead of using her full last name, she used just the first initial "K".  That'd be the same as me registering as Melanie P, instead of Melanie Paul.

Her concern with changing the "K" to her full Last Name at Birth was that she would lose the record of her contributions as a Member, and her activity here on g2g (we track our questions, answers, and other activity).

While she may not have as much in that regard to lose as would I, it'd still be a loss.

My suggestion was to leave the "K" as LNAB - at least until one of the folk in the know of exactly what'd be the loss pops in to give us the information - was to simply add the full spelling of her Last Name at Birth as her Current Last Name, which'd fix the display issue, while causing no loss regards contributions or g2g activity.
Edward (again, because I forgot to answer the rest of the question) -- changing the Last Name at Birth for our deceased ancestors, or non-Member relatives is pretty simple, and causes no loss of information.  Such changes are done every day, as information is found and verified.  (Sometimes a woman might have a profile created in the name under which she married, then it is found that she had married prior to that marriage, so her Birth name wasn't the one under which she was married.)

Trying to put it simply -- a profile is created for Jenny Noname, because she married Jo Hasaname as that.  Later research discovers that Jenny Noname was actually married to Henry Noname, and her birth name was actually Jenny Hername.  This means that the LNAB of "Noname" now needs to be changed to "Hername" - something easily done.  Everything in the profile stays exactly as it was, as the only thing to change is the LNAB, the Current Last Name and Other Last Names (which the editor needs to correct).

If this is still as clear as mud (meaning you still don't understand), please let me know and I'll try to get clearer.
Thank you! I think I figured it out.

1 Answer

+6 votes
I don't think you will lose anything. Have a look here:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Moving_Accounts_to_New_Names

The way I understand this, your new ID will merge with your old one. Maybe someone with more experience with this will confirm this info.
by Peggy Watkins G2G6 Pilot (826k points)
In particular, the link Peggy gave warns "This will reset your account activation date, contribution count, and G2G forum profile." Maybe not what you want.
It is up to you, Leila but since you've been a member for less than a month, these won't make a big difference.

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