G2G: Why do folk edit and change the names of Scottish married women of the 18th and early 19th century

Question

Why do, no doubt well-meaning but sadly ill-informed volunteers, edit and change the names of Scottish married women of the 18th and early 19th century? Scottish women of this period especially in the North East and in the Highlands were known by their baptised name throughout their lives and even in death because this is the name frequently found on their gravestone. This subject has often been discussed on Wikitree. Surely volunteers before editing and changing names should check. I had a recent instance where the volunteer changed the woman's name to that of a man with whom she had had a daughter ( the baptismal register says "in Fornication") Do volunteers who edit and change names not get any training or instruction in the cultural customs and practices of the area they are doing their editing.

George

Comments

Same with Sweden...

Swedish women had their own name since the Viking age, not taking their husbands name until modern times. But for some people that seems to be both unheard of as well as unthinkable...

As a Data Doctor born and living in Sweden I only work on the errors found on Swedish profiles, they are many enough to never run out of errors it seems.

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I believe it's an unintended consequence of these so-called challenges where people compete to get rid of certain classes of "errors" before a deadline. This encourages speed over accuracy and they see the easiest way to "fix" a child not having the same surname as its father/mother is to add a married name.

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While we do have challenges to clean up profiles, this is not some thing on wikitree that produces a error/suggestion. So this is not something that people are hurrying through to correct. If you want to see a list of errors that come up, You can check out the data doctors page. We fix things like Separators  () or , in location and name fields. USA in locations before 1776 when the USA was not the USA, not having a biography or Sources Category in the bio area. Dates not matching up. While it is a contest, many of our data doctors, source-a-thon and Clean-A-Thon participants do it correctly or try their best to.

As for the naming practices of women in certain places, I think this is just a matter of people not knowing this. Even some seasoned genealogist may not know the naming practices of a place during a time period. Yes we should all be more vigilant when adding/editing profiles and make sure we know how things worked in those times and as far as the last name being changed to a man she fornicated with, well either they didn't read the profile info or they missed it. Not everyone is as thorough or as knowledgeable as we would like them to be. Sometimes we have to just say nicely, hey did you know....?You do have to realize many of the people on here are not professional genealogist. Some know very little and are eager to learn, but can't unless someone instructs them. They are just filling in the Fields as they are read. The obvious thing that people think is the woman goes by married last name and naming rules in all countries are not that clear or the same, Especially when you have some that went by maiden names and some that went by married names and in one point and time there were not surnames at all. You were simply known as John son of James, John from Ennis or John the Carpenter. Those later became surnames James, Ennis and Carpenter.

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Oh and to say this. I always try to go by the name on a death, or Burial record as the current last name. If they are using their maiden name then I will put their maiden name as current last name and list a husbands last name as other possible last name. Just to make it searchable in case they were listed multiple ways.

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That is a good "rule of thumb" for surnames... one I follow without even rationalizing it...

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Sadly, the word fornication has fallen out of use, it might be possible the person didn't even understand what that meant. Not everyone uses a dictionary when they run into something they don't know or understand.

As far as the naming practices, I have been doing genealogy for more then 30 yrs, fairly new to research in Scotland. I had no clue that the women held on to their maiden names after marriage in the 18th and 19th centuries, It now makes sense to me why my Grandmother and at least one sister, used their maiden name as a middle intial, instead of their middle names.

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Interesting.....I was just looking at my Scottish grandmother's headstone. She died in 1975 and is shown by her maiden name, as is her mother who died in the 1930s buried in the same plot. Both have death registration in their married names. Within the family, both were often spoken about using their maiden names. They were Lowland Scots living close to the English border. I wonder what the current situation is.

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In Chinese and Korean the same applies. Women never change there name. In Spanish speaking countries the two names are hyphenated. I suspect USA cultural influences are coming into play here. Most cultures women don't change there name.

As an outsider of the USA I notice there is a strong assumption women change there name. In Australia most do. However it is increasingly common for no name change.

Answer 1

There's the problem of how to make the best use of the limited number of fields for computational purposes, ie searching and sorting.

Having the husband's name on the wife's profile somewhere makes searches possible that would otherwise not be possible.

Comments

R.J. Horace wrote "Having the husband's name on the wife's profile somewhere makes searches possible that would otherwise not be possible."

But in the case I mentioned the woman wasn't married to the man with who she had a child!

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Many published genealogies for people who lived in New Netherland refer to women by a husband's last name -- even though women in that time and place generally kept their birth names, and the specific women were never recorded as using a husband's name during their lives. In those cases, I recommend the use of the "Other Last Names" field to record those names so that people searching for a woman based on the name found in a publication will not assume she isn't present in WikiTree (and will not create yet another duplicate profile).

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What name did the child use?  Ideally you'd be able to find a mother using her given name and the surname of any of her children.

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Not necessarily the case in Scotland RJ. Even though married, the mother may never have used the same surname as the child.

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My point was, on FamilySearch, you can enter the surname of the child and the given name of the mother and search the database based on that.

The data boxes are for the computer to use and we should focus on that.

Genealogists and historians have always called people things they weren't actually called.  They don't need to keep proving to each other that they're aware of it.

Answer 2

I have almost 100% Scottish ancestry, mainly from Angus and Kincardineshire (modern day southern Aberdeenshire). I have hundreds of Scots in my tree, mostly going back to the 1700s, some, but not many going back to the 1500s.

In almost all of the census the married women are listed under their married name.

The problem is, unless we were there, we do not know how they were referred to either an official or casual/familial capacity. I've seen newspaper archives which refer to the woman as "Mrs William McDonald", of course, this depends on the influence on the journalist.

In Wills, some wives are named as their birth name, some are named as their married name. Even if they are named in a will with their maiden name, this doesn't tell us the full story, as one has been in every census with her married name.

Many of my ancestors don't have gravestones, particularly going farther back, so there is no reference point.

There are other factors at play here, if a woman is a widow, the chances of her being named somewhere in her maiden name increases. The problem is, there are no hard and fast rules here. It became fashionable over time to take the husband's name, but there is no specific date that this occured. It's down to individual choice.

I have also seen poor Kirk records stating simple "widow Smith". Not even acknowledging her first name.

An ancestors of mine is buried locally. I've seen the stone and she is named as "Flora Cameron Crow". Cameron is her maiden name, Crow her married name.

The issue is, do we go with the "official" documented stance or do we go with what may have occured in a casual, every day circumstance?

Comments

Well as you say, we don't know what they called themselves.  Nor do we need to.  So why don't we just leave that out of consideration?

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Generally, I do when it comes to my own ancestors. The problem begins when others amend or assume names and make unauthorised changes. There is an assumption that all married women in Scotland went by their maiden name, which, we don't know.

Scotland has its own laws and customs, and at present we can choose to go by any name we choose. Problems begin in regards to UK wide systems, banking, passports, other official documents. Names, haven't really been a set in stone thing. It was just easier for folks for obvious reasons to stick with the name they were born with, and moving forward, taking the husband's name as English influences became more common.

EDIT; There are new rules put in place on this site. Stating that Scots women prior to 1841 have their name as their maiden name only. I'm not sure why this is necessary and seems to complicate matters. Especially as many Kirk records continue to identify women as "Mrs John X" or "Widow X". This, going back to the 1600s.