Confused... which surname should be used?

Question

I created a profile for Klobuchar-14, Anna (Klobuchar) Clemenc. She's a Notable.

What's the protocol for surname use for a woman who was married multiple times? Anna is widely known as Annie Klobuchar Clemenc or just Anna Clemenc on Wikipedia. However, she was married and divorced several times and widowed once.  Clemenc was her first husband. Shouldn't the last husband be the name to which she is referred, and or at least the one that shows on the profile?

Is there a difference between how the media uses surnames and how genealogists use them? Most of her activism was done while she was married to her first husband Clemenc, and that's the name that was in the newspapers. Did it continue to be widely used for consistency?

I'm confused.

Thank you

Comments

How much simpler things would be if WT just stuck to maiden/birth names for everyone... (And didn't try to combine parts of different names to concoct a monstrosity of a displayed name.)

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Yes, I agree and typically stick to LNAB often. But here we have Wikipedia calling her Anna Clemenc. So this is confusing.

Answer 1

Hi Laura,

Apparently, she never really used her last husband's name.  On the FG you have sourced, it says "Anna Klobuchar Clemenc Shaws...", so if you really wanted to be correct, you could change it to Shaws.

HOWEVER, with famous people who use different names, you will then run into the issue of people not finding her profile (see other G2G threads)- she was notable using the name Clemenc, and thus you have a good argument to leave it that way.  It will prevent somebody not seeing her already in WT and making a new profile.  I think I would vote for leaving it just as you have it, with the other 2 LNs being listed in the AKA section.

I myself created a profile for an historical local filmmaker, after searching WT, only to find later that she already existed in WT, and the locally published name was a "stage name".

Comments

That's interesting. I imagine there are quite a few actors and perhaps others who have an "also known as" name. I don't imagine we can fully accommodate a completely different AKA in WT? Sure we could put alternate names for the surname and given name, but I believe you are saying they will not show up in a search, which is why you created a duplicate accidentally.

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I think there were more confusing influences, like a hyphenated name vs. a non-hyphenated name with the second of the hyphenation being used on the non-hyphenated one.  I believe the search engines have been made better.

If you have any interest, the profile in question is now Barham-1124, for stage actress/producer Nell Shipman.  The searches find her now under the stage name, using her first husband's last name, as well as some other ways.

Yes, not good to have 2 people working on a profile at once, I like the new protections.