What do I do if I see a person creating pre-1700 profiles with "de" LNAB? [closed]

Question

Is the approach different if it is a new member or a member since 2011?

Answer 1

Thanks for spotting it and for speaking up.

You can refer them to EuroAristo's name fields for European Aristocrats (see: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Fields_for_European_Aristocrats).

It repeats the point you are suggesting a couple times:

"LNABs should not include prefixes or prepositions. For example, Normandie was chosen for the LNAB while de Normandie is used in Current Last Name."

and

"6. LAST NAME AT BIRTH: This is the name they had (or would have been known by) when they were born. In most cases, it is one word. Exceptions to this are ‘de Vere’ and families that had ‘St’ as part of their name (such as St John, St Aubyn, St Hilary, St Liz, St Pol, St Sauveur)."

On top of that, if you or they (or anyone!) notice one that has been done incorrectly, you can add the following category so that it can be updated:

[[Category:EuroAristo - Profiles with incorrect LNAB]]

Thanks for keeping an eye out!

Answer 2

Hi Maryann,

If the profiles are French names in North America (Acadians, Filles du Roi, and Quebecois), then most of the time using "de" is okay because that is the name their family continued using.

Comments

Thanks for adding this, Erin. We need to be clear that not all pre-1700 profiles should follow the naming conventions of the EuroAristo project. My husband's Devoe ancestors were Huguenots, originally de Veaux, and not aristocrats as far as we know. I'd guess that 90-something per cent of them retained the "de" as part of their name either with or without space, either capitalizing the V or not, becoming DeVeau, Devoe, Devaux etc. They fled France before 1700, mostly.

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I would add that the use of de in names of early date was common in England where it had bore no indication of status merely an indication of the place to which the family were from. In truth they were often minor landowners, otherwise they would not have been mentioned in official documents; however, this was a time when surnames were still not standardized and with the plethora of Johns, Thomases, Williams and similar names, sometimes it was simple to distinguish one from another by adding their 'home' township or manor.

In more modern times in South Wales where the limited number of surnames in common usage caused identity problems the adoption of the person's occupation as an additional distinguishing feature led to the near comical iterations of lists of people which might include "Jones the post, Jones the baker, Jones the butcher". The high middle ages use of the linking word "de" was very commonly used in the same way.

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I had this discussion earlier about de/du/des being put before a name, they are known in French as 'particules', and in early days denoted noble birth.  The records do not call a person ''Sieur Lauzon'' but ''Sieur de Lauzon'', when speaking of those who came to New France in early 1600s, always.  It's part and parcel of their name.  And non nobles used them as Erin states, to denote either place of origin or place of residence, or a feature thereof, like des Rosiers (later Desrosiers), probably had some nice roses growing around there.

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One thing that needs to be remembered is that it isn't that the people that are part of the EuroAristo project didn't use the 'de', such as de Albini, de Bohun, etc., but that within Wikitree we don't use the 'de' in the LNAB field.  It belongs in the CLN (current last name) field.  This is solely for search purposes and in an effort to avoid duplicates.  It was something that was decided several years ago...

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We have been discussing this last week , for profiles from 1600 until now , with the exception of the Royal houses it's ok to use their convention instead of ours  see this G2G 

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Darlene, it's been my understanding all along that this convention was specific to EuroAristo and NOT system wide.

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Jillaine,

Yes, that's correct.  That's why I said what I did and mentioned the EuroAristo project profiles.  Just trying to avoid confusion and/or having people think that EuroAristo deletes the 'de' in the LNAB for any reasons other than search purposes.  It's not because the people weren't known by 'de'...