How can we edit a profile with underscores in the Last Name at Birth?

Question

Many of our profiles contain underscores in the Last Name at Birth (nut just the WikiTree ID in URL format), and these underscores are not allowed.

How can we make edits to Open profiles that we do not manage that have these disallowed characters in the Last Name at Birth? For example, I would like to edit http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ponce_De_Leon-De_Loayza-2

I receive this error:

"The Last Name at Birth can only contain letters, spaces, periods, dashes, and apostrophes."

Comments

I've edited other name fields to get rid of illegal characters, but I've not encountered this problem in the LNAB of a profile I'm not on the Trusted List for.

It appears to me that you need the help of a sysop to remove the illegal characters from the LNAB.

Answer 1

The last name at birth will have to be edited by some one who is pre-1500 certified.

Answer 2

Hi Karen,

I think you could create a new profile, then merge into it. That's what an LNAB change does in the background anyway.

Chris

Answer 3

Karen, if you give me the correct LNAB, I can change it.

Comments

Darlene, thanks! Nydia, the profile manager, can work on these after she returns from NGS 2016. In these cases, the Last Name at Birth is correct and just needs the underscores changed to spaces. We could fuss about whether it should be "Ponce de León y Loayza" as on WikiTree, or "Ponce de León y de Loayza" to preserve the "de" from his mother's name or "Ponce de León-de Loayza" as originally entered to comply with a desktop software program that didn't permit spaces, but we haven't come to consensus on a single format for Spanish dual surnames.

It looks like the WikiTree system needs us to change the Last Name at Birth first, as we can't edit the Current Name or any other part of the profile while the Last Name at Birth contains illegal characters.

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I have to admit, I've never seen that before. Glad we have sysops around who can handle this sort of thing. Thanks for offering, Darlene!