Middle name problem

Question

I have a problem with the Middle Name Field:  The person in question was born in Bohemia, given name Jan, no middle name. He appears in almost all records I can get my hands on as Jan, no middle name, up to and including his naturalization in 1919, the only exception being his WWI registration card where he appears as John Vaclav. After that he appears always as John V. In order to avoid giving him a middle name at birth should I just leave the middle name field blank and use John Vaclav in the Preferred Name Field instead? What other strategies do you employ for such situations?

Comments

I'd go with that.

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I'd leave MIDDLE NAME blank, and explain it in the Bio, as  you did above.

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Hello, Helmut and others!

I don't think the Middle Name field is restricted to Middle Name at Birth. Has everyone else been using that field that way?

Unless his birth location has/had different naming standards, I would put Vaclav in the middle name field and mark it certain.

Answer 1

I would follow what Tom said and just leave MIDDLE NAME blank, and explain it in the Bio, as  you did above, with one minor addition, do not mark the no middle name box because if you do the only to change that is to either mark the uncertain or certain boxes and in my opinion none of those choices would be correct.

Answer 2

Adding to the conversation, I'd go with the initial "V" knowing that as a middle name, I could either eliminate it or lengthen it to a full middle name later. The reason I would do that is to allow others to distinguish him from the other "Jans" or "Johns" in the future manifestations of his record. No accidental merging by other cousins, as it were.

Answer 3

He was my grandfather and the middle name was Vaclav.