This is not an LNAB.

Question

Bompasse_Bumpas_Bumpus_Bump? How will anyone find these profiles from a surname search? (There are 14.) Should not one Last Name at Birth be settled upon here? Doesn't the Other last name(s) field exist to accommodate variations? Surely it isn't right to have a last name composed of four?

http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Bompasse,%20Bumpas,%20Bumpus,%20Bump

Comments

You are absolutely correct Sandi. When names look like that they don't search well either. Hopefully Wikitreers who are responsible for creating this kind of last name, will see the question.

There is also at least one duplicate http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bumpas-3 I only searched the one last name.

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This is one for the PGMs.  The immigrant arrived on the Fortune, 1621, the 2nd boat into Plimoth.

Bradfourth spells it Bompass and Bumpasse.  But then, Brodforde couldn't spell his own name.

Edit - they've already got him as Bompasse-6

Answer 1

Before the mid-18th Century, spelling was not standardized. Words and surnames we're spelled differently by different people, even by the same people, often within the same document. Creative spelling was viewed with approval, not dismay.

What we must do is record the spelling extant in the existing document of the time, Thus, a surname at birth might be spelled differently than the same person's surname at marriage, childbirth and death.

That is the historical reality and we discard useful data with we edit our records to match our present needs.

Comments

Standardizing spellings has been standard practise in history and genealogy for centuries and nobody's ever felt that anything useful was being discarded.

On the contrary, spelling pedantry is considered to be trying to preserve something that isn't really there, and tends to be viewed as a symptom of "a little knowledge".

Incidentally, there's more than one way of spelling Edward, but nobody seems to have a problem with standardizing first names.

(Mostly because people haven't yet realised that the spellings in the books aren't authentic.)

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I have found in my own research that the spelling in historical documents can be diagnostic in tracing ancestral connections. When we standardize to an arbitrarily determined spelling, we risk losing those historical connections.

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RJ: The profile for Edward Bompasse uses a spelling of Edward that is not consistent with the modern convention:

Edouad "Edouard, Edward" Bumpas formerly Bompasse aka Bompass, Bump, Bumpus

The multiple spellings for his name suggest that the name had a French origin, but morphed into Bumpas, Bumpus, or Bump after emigration to New England. By attempting to record the versions of his name and his children's names that existed over time, we are attempting to preserve some of this family's history.

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However, it appears to me that "Edouad" is merely a misspeling of Edouard that propagated through somebody's electronic genealogy records.

Answer 2

You have stumbled upon Bizarro WikiTree where the strangest of methods that made sense at some point end up getting uploaded through a gedcom import and we can never get rid of them all!

Comments

Maybe we should come up with a "WTF" category....

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This sort of thing happens to some of us when we import Gedcoms. In our personal family trees we might list alternative spellings in the last-name field, then we're embarrassed to see what they look like when they get imported. (Been there, done that myself!)

I have an ancestor who married a Bumpas/Bumpus as her second or third husband. I've seen a lot of spellings for the name....

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@ Eric - thanks for my first really good laugh in a while!

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@Liz: I was thinking something like {{Unsourced}}, only {{WTF}} would mark profiles that need *massive* help. Maybe have a monthly contest with Tiger Teams going in to fix stuff up. Like a WikiTree Hackathon, but for profiles.

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Heck, maybe one of these ought to be on the Collaboration Profile of the Week. Instead of profiles with obscure backgrounds that are hard to work, have one of these profiles where everyone can sink their teeth into it.

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Hmm. A monthly challenge for "Long Profiles in Need of Cleanup" called "Hackathon" - I like it! Reminds me of what I call "slash & burn" editing.

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@Liz: I wasn't aware of that category. I've seen some profiles that could go on that. Thanks!

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Thanks to all; I've been laughing for the last few minutes!

Squinting at tiny cramped handwriting to figure out what happened to those old families can cause fatigue.  There was a humorous note this week; I'm related to the Noyse family of New Hampshire, and one of their sons was named Cutting Noyse.

And I've probably not spelled the surname correctly.  Time for a break!

Answer 3

There's a master list of surnames

http://www.wikitree.com/indexes/person/A/index.html

All the unique names are picked out.

You can do something with the orphans.  Beyond that, you have to appoint yourself as the LNAB Police and pester the PMs.

 

Answer 4

Obviously, an entry in the LNAB field comprised of researchers notes which never was used by the person in question -- such as Bompasse-Bumpas needs to be corrected.  

However, in some of the discussion I'm hearing a conflict between two motivations -- (1) what I understand to be WikiTree policy, that we try to give a person the LNAB that the person himself would have used at birth, and (2) the desire to give the person a name which resembles that of other family members, so that today's researchers will have an easier job of finding the person.  

It seems to me that while (2) is a desirable objective, (1) is the policy that we need to be true to in cases where they might conflict.  Say, Smith or Smythe, or Lewis and Lewes.  I wouldn't change one to the other just to aid indexing, if the person himself/herself used the alternate spelling.

Comments

I believe the goal here (not necessarily clearly stated in the initial question) is to give each of these people exactly one last name instead of a comma-separated list of four last names. The alternative spellings should go in the Other Last Names field (or possibly Current Last Name).

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Ellen, that's precisely my concern.  We're all agreed that the comma-separated names must go.  

The question is, do we look for one last name for them all, or do we research the last names the people actually used at birth?  The two objectives, which pit ease of indexing against historical accuracy, can produce different results.

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Since all but one of these people already had at least one profile with a normal LNAB, one of which is PPP and most of which appear to be better supported by sources than these multi-named profiles (most of which are classic unsourced gedcom imports), the obvious solution is to merge with the existing profiles.

Answer 5

I've found existing single-named profiles and I have proposed merges for all except http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bompasse,_Bumpas,_Bumpus,_Bump-1 (Lydia, born 1692).

Comments

Thank you, Ellen!

Answer 6

This will not help, but I found the source, not included in the bio on the profile, where all the information on Edward b. 1608 came from:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bompasse%2C_Bumpas%2C_Bumpus%2C_Bump-3

and here it goes:

Edward Bumpus. This name was originally spelled Bompasse now spelled Bumpas or Bump He arrived at Plymouth in the Fortune November 10 1621 and moved to Duxbury ...

History of the Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts, Volume 1

https://books.google.com/books?id=JxsWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36&dq=samuel+barrow:mercy+coombs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX07ypzZXMAhVENj4KHRObC6gQ6AEIOTAG#v=onepage&q=samuel%20barrow%3Amercy%20coombs&f=false

 

Comments

Actually, that helps a lot, Chris. I think it's useful to be able to document the sources of information in profiles, no matter what those sources are... Thanks!