G2G: What is proper treatment in OLN Field for married women who settled in New France in 17&18 th century?

Question

The University of Montreal's PRDH (Research Program in Historical Demography) link at [http://www.genealogy.umontreal.ca/en/NomsEtPrenoms Denomination in old Quebec] shows that "Married women kept their family name at birth, at least in religious, administrative and legal documents". Some Wikitree editors favour inclusion of husband's last name in Other Last Name (OLN) field; others editors including myself favour not including in OLN field.

Answer 1

Claude, bear in mind that many Wikitreers are from the United States. We might not be familiar with naming conventions in Canada. I had no idea, until I started reading this forum that Canadian women kept their maiden names. So if some well meaning person comes along and adds the husbands name to the Current Last Name field, they are doing it to facilitate searching and ignorance on this point. They aren't doing it to make more work for you or drive you crazy. Just change the last name back. You could write a polite note if you're inclined explaining name conventions.

Comments

Anne,

Honour code's two top priorities are collaboration and accurary. My question is very specific and should deserve a very specific answer, which has nothing to do with work avoidance, impatience or other irrational traits on my part. Wikitree members' ignorance of basic genealogical conventions cannot be used as an excuse for not being accurate in profiles.

Danielle and I are in agreement to the extent that Current Last Name field should not be show husband' or husbands' last name. Where we disagree is in inclusion or not of husband/husbands' last name in OLN field. Danielle is in favour of inclusion whereas I am in favour of exclusion.

Claude

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Claude,  I am going to refrain from the entire topic of my reactions to the chattelization (if that is a word) of women and I will also not deal with the question of CLN content because I believe that this is very well defined already.

The OLN field is a catch-all that has two main uses - it is used for cases where a person (not necessarily a woman) was known by a last name at some point in her life that is other than her LNAB and CLN.  

It's other use is for spelling variants of either LNAB or CLN or other completely different names that someone thinks might be used in a search by someone who wants to find this person, regardless of whether or not the name was actually used by the person.  The last name of a woman's husband, if not her CLN, certainly belongs here for the purpose of aiding research.

This seems a very simple question to me, and one with an equally obvious answer.  Local customs of the times and any kind of chauvinistic treatment of women, now or then, are completely irrelevant to the usage of the OLN field.

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Gaile,

My question is certainly not meant to have chauvinistic overtones. This question is simple and historically neutral. 

Re husband's last name in 17th and 18th century, then, inclusion in OLN and exclusion in CLN has the advantage of differentiating which married women's last name is adopt by spouse, which is not adopted by spouse.

Your answer is by far the most straight-forward and wins me over in dealing with this question. 

Danielle,

I therefore also agree with the trust of your argument.

Claude

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Thank you Claude.  Although Lianne was not involved in this discussion.  My name is Danielle. ;)

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As a note, PRDH and Drouin and all other research engines are not trees, they deal with individual people.  Their conventions do not necessarily apply to an actual tree.  Every tree program I have seen includes a place for spousal names for women, whether these replace their birth names or not is left to the discretion of the person doing the tree.

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Danielle,

I am terrible embarrassed for this mix-up. Please accept my apologies.

Claude

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Danielle,

Whether or not PRDH and Drouin use a tree is a moot point. For a database is inherently equivalent to a tree such that PRDH can spit out the number of descendants starting from a certain ancestor.

I have similar experience with tree programs allowing for spouse names. But I have also been told by family that certain daughters' spousal last name should not be used in tree because daughters have consciously chosen to keep their maiden name, which practice is especially prevalent in Quebec today.

Claude 

 

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I find that we are mixing up two important objectives of this site: Accuracy of identity in profiles and finding the profiles.

There is no doubt that from the 16th century on, formal and legal side, women kept their maiden name upon marrriage but no doubt either that they were also well known under their husband's name in the community, on a day to day basis. All I have to do is to look at my own parents and great grand parents. Good exemples of that are readily seen on hand written censuses such as 1901, 1911.

I feel that women with several marriages should have their surname appear in LNAB and CLN with spouses names in the OLN field.

For one marriage couples, I also feel that adding the husband's name in the CLN field makes it a lot easier to locate a profile on a long list of similar first names and surnames when on a search motion (and this list become longer and longer every day with the growth of WikiTree).

Should'nt we be focussing on accuracy and findability?

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A lot of people find the resulting profiles cluttered and not representing the person they are about after all spelling variations and alternative names or names that might facilitate searching etc. have been added. A lot of these discussions could be resolved by having a "Search also" field on the edit page where all sorts of alternative spellings, husband names, Slavic female and male last name forms could be entered and not have it show on the main profile page. If that field were included in the search algorithms the purists could have their profile page the way they feel it ought to be, and accuracy in searching and avoidance of duplications could actually get greatly improved at the same time because more alternatives could be added to be included in a search.

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Helmut,

the main problem with not including variations of spelling is exactly the search function limitations.  For example, the name Payet has the variation Payette.  If both are not entered in the profile, then the person searching, who may only know one variation, may not find the person he is looking for.  I see this regularly when searching for matches to profiles.

Claude and Gaston,
The law in Quebec as it stands now is that a woman keeps her birth name on all legal documents, regardless of spouses.  She may use the spousal name in day-to-day activities, as is done by many. (But Gaston, when the woman's last name is changed to the spousal name on current last name box, and you want to add a child to a family, if the father had more than one spouse, and both were called by the same first name, then differentiating between the women in that function gets more difficult.  Both women tagged with the spousal name show up with the same name there.)

The children however in current practice are another story.  They can be given the name of their father, or the name of their mother, or a combination of both.  It looks like this:

parents x Boucher, y Tremblay

child 1 a Boucher

child 2 b Tremblay

child 3 c Boucher-Tremblay

Now take this to the next generation

child 3 c Boucher-Tremblay marries d Mercier-Lacombe

their children can have the following names:

e Boucher ; f Boucher-Mercier ; g Tremblay ; h Boucher-Lacombe ; i  Tremblay-Mercier ; j Tremblay-Lacombe ; k Mercier ; l Lacombe.  Basically the child can have 1 or 2 of the parents' names, not more.  But as you can see the variations are multiple.  And it is left up to the parents as to which name is used.

Since I'm sure this whole wikitree project will not stop with us, we need to do some planning to allow for such.  Also, there are more and more children whose parents live common-law, and never had a marriage ceremony.  That is going to be quite the headache in tracking if we do not foresee a solution now.

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Danielle, Oh my goodness, I think the whole thing could give me a headache. Will I know my children are my own? :-)

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Gaston,

I have agreed with Danielle that profiles of married women known to not have adopted husband's LN nevertheless include, to, for search purposes, husband's LN in OLN. I don't see an advantage to differentiating such married women's profiles by inclusion of husband's LN in OLN field for women with multiple husband marriages and in CLN field for women with only one husband. 

For example, searches based pm http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Drouin-78  all come up with at least one profile containing

Geneviève (Drouin) Trépanier October 19, 1643 Québec, Canada (Nouvelle-France) - October 4, 1710 ~ Managed by Lisa Trudeau. 

when searches change from Geneviève Drouin (in LNAB), to Geneviève Trépanier (in CLN), to  Geneviève Trépanier (in CLN), to  Geneviève Droin (in OLN),  to  Geneviève Trépany (in OLN),

CLN field should simply not show husband's LN in case of married woman known to not have adopted husband's last name, as in 17th and 18th century.

Regarding 1901 and 1911, my paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather are both enumerated with same Lambert LN. However, in 1681 census, Élisabeth Aubert, wife of my Percheron ancestor Aubin Lambert, is enumerated with maiden name as Élisabeth Aubert. So that the convention regarding French-Canadian married women adoption of husband's LN may not be as constant in the past  400-odd years a you make it out to be.

Helmut,

i agree with you that there is much to be said by adding a 'Search also' field to deal with search problem in way that does not detracti from profiles' historical accuracy.

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Danielle:

I agree with you fully. My hunch is that people object to putting husbands' names or alternative spellings or modernized names in the OLN field because they feel that the main profile page gets cluttered up and on top of that with names that the person in question would have never used.

Technically my suggestion would entail creating an additional "edit-page only" name field that could be the target for the search engine but would not show on the main profile page thus removing the reasons for the objection to putting as many possible search related items in that field. If it would be desirable to see all the search parameters on the main profile page may be they could be put there in a side bar under such a title "search parameters".

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Helmut,

That sounds like additional complexity added to the program, and the notion that additional names at the top under the 'aka' listing on the finished profile are clutter I disagree with.  Those names stem from records, we all know the level of literacy or lack thereof of those times, and some of the wilder variations are strictly phonetic.  Like McFarling becoming Maquefarlin.  I kid you not, it exists.  Since children can get all these variations on their baptisms, it is appropriate to list them where they can be seen by all, 'edit-page only' sounds like it wouldn't.  And not everybody is well versed in computer tech.

Ann, you would know your own children, one would hope!  ;)  A great-grand-child might have a bit of trouble finding you though.

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Danielle, Helmut,

Re Danielle's 1st sentence. I could not disagree more regarding the idea that aka listing does not look like clutter. Having all these unessential last names stinks. Wikitree members need to always look to what the finished product will look to the end customer. The last thing we want is to tailor the profile to the genealogists. The profile should be as pleasant to view and understood to the end customer as is possible to achieve.  Trying to preempt program complexity and musing that " 'edit-page only' sounds like it wouldn't" detracts from trying to solve the real problem.

Re rest of Danielle's last response, it is not possible for me to understand how points made disagree with Helmut's viewpoint. 

If indeed Danielle is disagreeing with Helmut, I don't think Danielle has thought through how cluttered OLN field's part of the profile can become.  For example, referring to Louis Gasnier's profile and the associated image at http://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Gasnier-26, we see that in the 17th & 18th century there were according to PRDH  'records' 51 variations (!!!) of the standardized 'Gagné' LN involving Gagné, Gagnier, Ganier,  Gagnie, Gangne, Gasnier, and 44 other LN variations. Ridiculous.

Helmut's suggestion needs to be taken much more seriously then this latest  response by Danielle appears to be assuming. 

 

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There in inherent conflict of interest in awarding discussion's best answer by a main participant in the discussion.

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I did not say use every variant that could exist, but list the ones that were used for the individual in question.  By using your logic Claude, the name Cottu would disappear from the tree, to be replaced by what it became, which was Coutu.  But the records of that family in the early days all used Cottu, not Coutu.  Are we trying to be accurate or artistic here?  Some people are only using what is termed 'standardized' versions of names, which do not reflect what was used at the time.  Which ends up with other people creating duplicate profiles since they are using the names they find in the records.  Matching and merging these is a continual process and is already a massive job.

And 'edit page only' would not SHOW the names, which is what I meant, and if you are looking at a profile without editing it, you would not see the variants applicable to the individual in question.  And could create another duplicate profile.

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I like to think that my genealogical work aims to be of interest to end customer 50 years from now.  Accordingly, I would think we are trying to be both accurate and artistic. You are putting words in my mouth when you suggest that profile LN would according to my logic change from Cottu to Coutu. I am merely saying that the LN variations can at the limit often quickly become unmanageable.

On countless profiles, I see parents’ profiles the children of which have multiple LNs between siblings. It is obvious that such multiple LNs between siblings is often due to lack of research,  preference to tree branch LN the point along tree of which is arbitrarily chosen, or other irrational genealogical foibles.

I suggest that Wikitree reserve OLN to actual known real nicknames (i.e. termed aka or dit/dite in profile) to be used in conjunction with a new LN field titled ‘LN Variations’¸ which could be searched for profile duplication avoidance purposes. As Helmut suggests, these ‘LN Variations’ terms would be listed in side-bar near ‘LN Variations’ field or heading in both edit view and in profile view. The  ‘LN Variations’ field or heading could possibly be toggled to hide or show LN variations in profile view.

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Danielle:

I think the very fact that this or similar discussions keep appearing in G2G over and over again bears witness to the fact that our present processes appear insufficient to many contributors. In addition to French Canadian naming issues a proposal such as mine could also address numerous other issues that have come up again and again: Just recently somebody wanted all Scottish name variants with Mac, Mc etc. appear on one page; a little while ago there was a discussion about searches involving Cyrillic - and by extension any other of the seven non-Latin alphabets we have in use on WikiTree by last count; profiles for Slavic women where it was proposed to add the male form of the last name because emigrants from Slavic countries tended to drop the female name form in their new countries.

You mentioned yourself that we need to plan for the future now. I don't see a very appealing presentation in the future if we keep on adding more and more variations to the profiles. If it is felt that they need to be on the profile page they can be in a box or side bar somewhere in the biography section perhaps. But I do feel that such a change would actually help cutting down on creating duplicates as people could feel free to add many more name variations to be searched.

If both search engine and matchbot use the same search algorithm conceivably a lot more potential matches would come up using this approach.

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I have no problem with them being in a separate box, as long as the tech people agree.  But they should be visible near the top of the profile.  A box to the side would work, with the heading present to tell what exactly they are.  But to have them not show at all on the profile except in an edit function would defeat the purpose.  Lots of people use their eyes rather than the program to decide if something matches or not.  If the program pulls up a possible match, and they eyeball it and don't see the variation they are working with, they may dismiss it as irrelevant to their profile.  Claude's example of Gagné and Gasnier comes to mind, to a French Canadian they are pretty obvious, but to someone who is only descended from us, it isn't necessarily apparent that one is descended from the other.

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And just to give you an example of a profile with multiple last names that is a true headache, take a look at Catherine Housse [[Housse-1]].  Listing all the last names used for her is really needed, since the true one is not known.

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Danielle,

For married women known to not have adopted husband's LN, such as in case of 17th & 18th century French-Canadian women, tell me again why you want to impose husband's LN in OLN field, when the spousal LN is known as shown in tree. Why not show husband's LN in OLN on exception basis? Catherine Housse [[Housse-1]] would be one such exception profile.

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Danielle, Helmut,

A separate LN Variations field in side-bar, with OLN field reserved for true nicknames or surnoms, would be best. The LN Variations field could be toggled to hide or show on demand these unessential spousal names.

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Claude, frankly, if I had my preferences, the name of the box ''Current last name'' would be changed or would disappear as it is rather misleading and prone to create what we are dealing with now, and there would be a box for birth name, one for other names (aka type), one for spousal names and one for name variations.  There's another profile I worked on recently where the girl is illegitimate.  Ursule [[Sarrazin-33]] When she marries, she uses the name Sarrazin, her baptism shows the patronymic Duhaud being obviously added later on the record, (her mother being a Fiset, but she never used that name) most of the baptisms of her children only show her being called Ursule or Marie Louise (she liked changing names apparently) with no last name, and then when her children start marrying she gets listed as St-Onge.  Go figure what anybody was thinking at the time.

Ideally, the spousal name would apply to both men and women.  If you've ever had to search for a name like Jean Dubois, you'll know there are lots of those.  If you're looking for a specific couple, you have to look at every Jean Dubois in the relative time frame to find the right couple.  And I would add a search function for couples as well as individuals.  When I use Drouin, their database is set up so I can enter a last name for the husband and one for the wife and find any couples that fit that match, or also include the first names and find those much more easily.

Having both spouses listing spousal names (clearly marked as names of spouses, irrelevant of local usage), would make things a lot easier on everybody I think.

Meanwhile, going to send you a message on another profile that you can help with, Percheron immigrant with dubious parentage listed.

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One can search PRDH database by Individual FN(s) and LN(s), by couple/family FN(s) and LN(s), by Individual number, and by couple/family number.

Nos Origines also allows searching by either individual or couple.

In PREFEN searches, results cover a wide range of similar looking LN possibilities with precise LN variations identified for each search line.

One could easily upload PRDH LN variations to Wikitree.

Given that Wikitee mission is to cover everyone on earth, one would  think that Wikitree search capabilities would be more sophisticated then is currently available.

Answer 2

I have first-hand verification (from my Mimi) that women of French decent kept their Family name after marriage.  I don't have any issue with adding their married name in OLN field, it makes it incredibly easy to find my French ancestors BUT if it is used as "current last name' I get a bit grouchy.

My greatest issue is that ALL children (again first hand verification) were given the name of Marie or Joseph at their baptism because apparently the Catholic Church Priests felt the parents couldn't be trusted to give their children "holy' names.  This has caused a huge issue with people using only the Roman Catholic Church baptism records (when creating the profile) as proof of birthname - especially in Canada.  I've found that if you search the Ontario Archives of Birth Records, you'll find the original first name at birth followed by the infamous Marie or Joseph.

I'd be interested in your thoughts...

Comments

Note that my question refers specifically to 17th/18th century married women's OLN who settled in New France.

I have a problem using husband's last name for  even OLN field when it is known that married women kept their family name at birth. Married women's Last Name is either adopted by husband or it is not.  Inclusion of OLN is confusing enough with actual nicknames / surnoms.

While children, including me and my siblings, were indeed (often) given the first name of Marie or Joseph at their baptism, it was more a question of Catholic tradition that lack of trust on the part of Catholic priests. 

Refer for example to the following [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10673c.htm New Advent webpage about Christian names]: 

"Some of the seventeeth century French rituals have gone further than this. For example that of Bourges (1666) addressing parents and godparents urges: "Let them give to boys the names of male saints and to girls those of women saints as right order requires, and let them avoid the names of festivals like Easter (Pâques), Christmas (Noël), All Saints (Toussaint) and others that are sometimes chosen." Despite such injunctions "Toussaint" has become a not uncommon French Christian name and "Noël" has spread even to England. The addition of Marie, especially in the form Jean-Marie, for boys, and of Joseph for girls is of everyday occurrence."

My experience is that baptism records are as, if not more, reliable than provincial vital statistic records for the latter records are often evidently derived from the former. In the 17th and 18th century's New France, genealogists have relied heavily on religious records to re-construct the extensive genealogical record.

 

 

 

 

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Hi Deborah,

As far as 'all the children' being given Marie or Joseph, when you look at original records, this is not true of early days.  A lot of girls were called Marie _something (Marie Anne, Marie Louise, Marie Madeleine, etc).  Those other names were NOT middle names, they were part and parcel of the name given the girl.  Many girls dropped the Marie part when of adult age.  In later times, the names got hyphenated, although they were not hyphenated for a long time.  Maybe just grammar changes, or spread of literacy, who knows why?

What did happen a lot in records is that most often, in baptisms particularly, the mother was not present, and people were mostly illiterate.  So the parish priests were told the name of the mother (or not) and inserted a Marie on the record.  There are tons of such examples in the records, where you look for their birth name and Marie is totally absent from their baptism.

Answer 3

As far as their keeping their own names, we are in agreement.  The program has an automatic function when loading GEDCOMs that puts married names in 'Current last name', which is annoying, but one can fix that.

But I do think and feel very strongly that spousal names should be included in the 'other last name' field.  My reasons for that are as follows:

1)  From a tech viewpoint, if a person is searching for a woman whose last name they do not know, only the spousal relationship, if the spousal name is not present in that box, they will not find it.

2) I know of one disreputable family member who got referred to as ''la Brunelle'' in records, these were court records of testimonies given by people.  This was her spousal name and not her own name.

3) I work with Drouin collection a lot and look at original records.  For example, in baptisms, the godmothers are referred to as ''so-and-so, wife of such-and-such.''  This is never done for the men as godfathers, they are not referred to as ''so-and-so, husband of such-and-such''.  Ever.  They are occasionally referred to as ''so-and-so, son of such-and-so''.  Probably due to same names occurring regularly.  There are also instances where the woman's actual name is not known, particularly on funeral records, and it is then treated by the officiating priests by calling the woman ''widow such-and-such''.

4) Although women kept their names, their legal position was equivocal at best.  I've just been working on a profile where the woman is inheriting from her parents, everything is being done by procuration since she is in New France and her parents were in France.  The procuration was first authorized by her husband.  I quote ''suffisamment autorisée par son mari par procuration passée devant Martial Piraube, commis au greffe tabellionage de Québec pays de la Nouvelle-France, le 06-09-1641,''

5) It is not true that records after the conquest and to present time only used the spousal name.  My own baptism, which dates to well before the law that reinstated women's names staying the same after marriage, names my mother by her maiden name, not her married name.  My grandmother's funeral, which I attended, has her maiden name on the documents pertaining to it also.  She died in 1975.  Tombstones most often bear the maiden name of the wife, whatever the period.

For all these reasons, I feel that spousal names should be included in 'Other last name' field.

Comments

Re: Point 1. I assume this does not apply to 17th and 18th century married women who settled in New France,

Re: Point  2. My question dealing with 17th and 18th century married women who settled in New France, which excludes women not born in Europe.

Re: Point 3.  I agree that this point is true but I fail to see the connection of this point with requirement to include husband's last name in OLN.

Re: Point 4. I fail to see the connection of this point with requirement to include husband's last name in OLN.

Re: Point 5. My question dealing with 17th and 18th century married women who settled in New France, which excludes women not born in Europe.

I therefore say ban use of husband's last name, dead or alive, in OLN field for married women who settled in New France.

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Women from France who settled in New France were treated in exactly the same manner in documents than those born in New France.  I just took a look at records for Marie Favery, wife of Pierre Legardeur, sieur de Repentigny, who is the woman in question in the inheritance above cited, she is godmother of Adrien Martin on 22 Nov 1638 in Quebec city and is cited as ''Damoiselle Marie Favery épouse de Monsieur de Repentigny fut marraine''.  And damoiselle was a title, not restricted to unmarried women.  And the example i have cited is just one of well over a dozen for that one woman.

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We are getting nowhere with this line of discussion. This is a big difference between married women from France who settled in New France and married women that were born in New France in that the former were exhaustively researched by countless professional genealogist in comparison to the latter married women so that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. I continue to see no need for inclusion of husband's last name in OLN field for these married women born in France who settled in New France. 

I see no