Did you notice the Middle Name field changes?

+89 votes
2.1k views

Hi WikiTreers,

A few months ago we discussed removing our Middle Name field, since most genealogy tools don't have one, and because WikiTreers in cultures that don't use middle names have been driven crazy by our prompts to add middle names and the need to mark "no middle name" indicators.

There was a lot of support for removing the Middle Name field, but no consensus, and good points were made in favor of keeping it. Therefore, we decided to make more conservative changes.

These are now all live:

  1. Profiles without middle names no longer have "[middle name?]" prompts.
  2. When creating a profile, if you enter a two-part first name, you won't be asked if the second part is a middle name.
  3. There is a setting for those who live in cultures without middle names that will:
    a.) Hide the Middle Name field when creating profiles.
    b.) Automatically set the "no middle name" indicator on new profiles.
    c.) If you create profiles using a GEDCOM, it will not separate two-part first names into separate First Name and Middle Name fields.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please post an Answer below. (Comments at the top will be hidden once read.)

Thanks,

Chris and the WikiTree Team

P.S. If you are not seeing the Middle Name field when creating profiles and you want to see it, uncheck your setting here. (In the past, this setting just did #2 above.)

in The Tree House by Chris Whitten G2G Astronaut (1.6m points)

23 Answers

+43 votes
These are great steps in the right direction!

My question is--is this going to change the search function in any way? And will it change how duplicates are searched for in the profile creation process?
by Emma MacBeath G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
+33 votes
Seems like a good solution
by Matt Ashe G2G1 (1.6k points)
I agree this seems like a permanent solution!
+35 votes
As an avid anti-middle name field advocate, I'm happy with the compromise. The real issue was the assumption and the additional labor for each profile which adds up... these changes will help account for that.
by Adriana Hazelton G2G6 Mach 2 (21.3k points)
edited by Adriana Hazelton
Yes! I love the way WikiTreers keep making me more and more productive. Congratulations on saying goodbye to that drain on your research time.
+29 votes
Once again

With much appreciation to the WikiTree team

Always making WikiTree better ... Thank you
by Ronel Olivier G2G6 Pilot (135k points)
+29 votes
I noticed the changes on the profiles that I created today.

I didn't realize that there was a setting for the preference for automatically marking "no middle name", so I created quite a few before finding this post.

Observations:  The "no middle name" indicator was automatically checked for the profiles I completed prior to finding out there was a setting that I needed to change.  Even if I entered a middle name later, there was no way to turn of the "no middle name" indicator on that profile.  It would be good if that was toggled off if the middle field was populated...or if there was a way to manually toggle it off.
by C. Mulyck G2G6 Mach 2 (20.1k points)
+28 votes
A good step in the right direction. I'm a software developer, and wrote the name matching algorithm for a couple departments of our state government. During that time, I spent a lot of time studying the customs of names in a variety of cultures. I came to the conclusion that the only two rational ways to handle names in databases, when the population contains members from different cultures, is to either have just given names and family names, or a single name field. We opted for the given/family model.

In the past, I've been kind of frustrated with wikitree's name model. For example, in my tree there are lots of Nordic patrinymic names that also have family/house names. It's confusing shoehorning that into the first/middle/last model. For example, Olof Knutsson Måneskiöld has the given name Olof, and the family names Knutsson Måneskiöld. But in the first/middle/last model, Knutsson is the middle name (positionally), but isn't really a middle name. If his name had simpy been Olof Knutsson, then his first name would be Olof, and his last name would be Knutsson. As another example, it's weird to put the name Maria de los Angeles Hernandez Gomez into the first/middle/last model, especially since she doesn't really have a middle name.
by Steve Hatchett G2G6 Mach 5 (57.0k points)
+16 votes
Sounds reasonable.

Regarding "Profiles without middle names no longer have "[middle name?]" prompts."

Why stop there? Why not get rid of ALL of those bothersome yellow insertions? They make profiles one manages look ugly and difficult to scan when one views them. Are they really needed at all?
by Daphne Maddox G2G6 Mach 3 (32.4k points)

Most of those prompts are very convenient. They are shortcuts you click to add relatives: [mother?][spouse?][add sibling], etc. I use them all the time: please don't take them away!

If you don't want to see them, you can click [public view] to the right of the tab bar.

I agree with Jim, those yellow prompts are hugely useful. They mean that you can add family members directly from the main profile view and not have to go into edit mode and get an "add profile" in a new tab.

But I'm very happy to see the Middle name prompts have vanished.

Edit: Typo
Yes, I understand what they do. I'm saying they are really annoying, not that I don't understand them. :)

I wish we could have an option to just always see the public view.... or just hide those things. At least access to the public view has been restored.
I disagree per the above comments. Keep them.
I agree. Keep middle names & provide a way to list all names in sequence. This might cut down on duplicate profiles when various decades of census listed different variations of names for the same child or adult. I have several relatives whose middle names were used primarily as given names and some family did not know of the real first name.

I had a great grandgather with 3 names!  William David Houston Brogdon thankfully was known as Will to most acquaintances and family.

So I like the middle name being included.
In that case you would have lots of given names and a familyname. And a prefered name for what he was called by his friends and families
I agree! Keep the option of middle names. I have numerous people in my tree who were known by their middle names, including both my grandfathers. Anyone doing a search might miss them if the middle name is not there.
+20 votes

I love it smiley

There's one small thing that I think Ian will fix very soon in the WBE: When I add a profile, the name comes up in the penultimate screen as "Ole undefined Olsen", which seems to indicate that a handle fell off somewhere.

by Leif Biberg Kristensen G2G6 Pilot (288k points)
I've seen this "undefined" in the name of the profile I'm creating.  It's very disturbing because I think I've done something wrong.  Yes?  Or not?
There's nothing to worry about, you can see that the name is correct in the final "Profile successfully created" screen. It's only a glitch from the new handling of Middle names, and I'm confident that it soon will be fixed.
+26 votes
That are good news. A year or more ago I asked to change that; now it is done. Thank you.
by Dieter Lewerenz G2G Astronaut (3.2m points)
+14 votes
Not a fan of the middle name being taken off the create a profile page.  I would much rather have it there and then just check the "no middle name."  Now, I have to go to the second page and unmark no middle name when I put the middle name in.  Just not a fan!
by Christine Miller G2G6 Mach 9 (94.2k points)

There's a setting to bring back the middle name on the profile creation page. See this link for example.

+13 votes

Reading over the comments:

Not a fan of the middle name being taken off the create a profile page.  I would much rather have it there and then just check the "no middle name."  Now, I have to go to the second page and unmark no middle name when I put the middle name in.  Just not a fan! 

I'm I missing something?  Here is what I see:  I didn't touch any settings

This might be a little difficult to se but the "Middle Name" filed displays in the third box down.  

Anyway, I love the new layout! Thank YOU!

(the other reason I'm posting this is because every time I post a picture the privacy setting is set so it won't display, so this is a test and if it works, that means I got it figured out!

by David Draper G2G Astronaut (5.0m points)
edited by David Draper
+14 votes
Thanks for reminding me of being able to change the setting for the Middle Name.  What I am really missing are the nickname field and the other last name field being right there and handy. It is an unnecessary step to have to go back in and remember to add them later.  Please, please put them back right next to the name fields.
by Willodene Adams G2G6 Pilot (126k points)
I agree with this point, Willodene. There is room for more name fields on that page.
I agree entirely, it was much easier to add these when creating a profile on the old system, and it was automated with Wikitree-X and Sourcer.

 Please restore these fields to the create profile page.
+17 votes
I'm all for flexibility, which is what this compromise represents. Even though I work on a number of German profiles that don't use middle name, I still personally will keep the setting disabled to hide anything middle name related.
by Steven Greenwood G2G6 Pilot (135k points)
+13 votes
A pragmatic solution, I would not have welcomed removal of the middle name field, and I never understood the argument that the 2nd given name was not a middle name.

 The again my mother has 3 given names, so the 2nd and 3rd given names go in one middle name field.
by Gary Burgess G2G6 Pilot (155k points)
The second given name is not a middle name. Then a lot of German families will have 7 sones with first Name Johann and 5 girls with first Name Anna. In Germany all given names are equal and very often the second or third given Name is the call Name or the real first name.
Nothing at all unusual in my family or ancestors with the preferred name being the 2nd (or subsequent) given name.

 Where I live, all parts of the name have equal legal status, and you are entitled to use whatever name you want to in day to day use, and it doesn't have to be part of your registered name (as long as the use is not for fraud), official documents may have other requirements.

 The use of first name, 2nd or middle name is simply referring to the order of the names, most people having two given and one family name.

 To add to that my grandmother's preferred name was both her first and middle name at the same time.

 I'm also in a country where it is not unusual for people to have names in two languages, that is something Wikitree  doesn't have provision for.
+13 votes
I've been away from WT for a couple of weeks (working on sources for a GEDCOM), so when I came bck to it this morning and Uploaded that GEDCOM, the new profile-creation format caught me off guard. Thought at first I hadn't paid attention and had done something wrong! On that note, I would recommend you put a banner across the top: "PLEASE NOTE NEW FORMAT!", or something, at least for a few weeks.

As to the middle name being included in the first-name field, I have no problem with that. I use RootsMagic, which puts them in a single field, too. It just means changing my automatic reflexes a bit in creating a profile.

I notice, too, that in cleaning up the text imported by a GEDCOM, there used to be one or two plank spaces following the period on each line (which, of course, I always deleted because I'm a bit OCD and it bothered me to leave the there with no purpose). Those are now gone, with the cursor immediately following the period.  Thank you for that.
by Michael Smith G2G6 (6.9k points)
+12 votes
In conjunction with this change, what is the recommended way to use the Preferred Name field?

For example, suppose someone's name was John David Smith and known as John ,  if we put "John David" as the Proper First Name, and leave Middle Name blank:  is the Preferred Name "John", or "John David" ?

According to description of preferred name it should be "John", but unfortunately filling in the fields that way will display the profile title as "John David (John) Smith" which I find unaesthetic ;  if the Middle Name field were used then it would just display as "John David Smith" , and the parenthesized Preferred Name only shows when it's not the first forename.
by Matt McNabb G2G6 Mach 4 (43.6k points)

Good question, Matt.

If the preferred name were the second one David, then John David (David) Smith would make sense, even if it looks complicated.

John David (John) Smith just looks odd.

If most of the names on profiles you create are from an Anglo culture, it seems best to turn off the Hide Middle Name miscellaneous setting so as to avoid this.

+12 votes
Great change, thank you.  I'm not using it but I can see how it will be a lot more convenient for folks.

Also very much appreciate that it now goes straight to the edit screen after adding a person.  Not sure when that was changed as I've just come back after a few months, but that's saving me tonnes of time.
by Aaron Hopkinson G2G Crew (930 points)
+11 votes
When creating a new profile from a Gedcom file, the first and middle names are appended as a first name.  There should be a text box field to manually parse out the middle name so it can be inputted as a middle name as part of the creation process.  

The only way that I see to fix it (and I have done) is to edit the profile once created.  This edit would not be needed if the middle name text box was available in the profile creation process.
by Russell Butler G2G6 Pilot (202k points)
+10 votes
I've missed a lot of the debate around this, but this seems like a great compromise which hopefully appeases the majority of both sides.

My agenda for middle names is to allow active WT accounts to select whether or not we want our middle names abbreviated or in full on our profiles :D
by Amelia Utting G2G6 Pilot (219k points)
+11 votes
And then there are those ancestors who swapped their given and middle names at various times so that it is hard to be certain which is which!   Sometimes I put the reverse order in the Other Nicknames field.   How does this affect the search function?
D
by Darryl Rowles G2G6 Mach 7 (73.0k points)
I would also be interested in knowing the answer to this question as my grandmother was born Myra Grace Blythman but everyone called her Grace, my mother was born Grace Myra Marshall but she was called Myra all the time.

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