DesMarets, Des Marets, Marets, or Demarest

Question

Right now most of the Des Marets line's LNAB is set to Marets, following the standard set by the European Aristocracy group, but since then the New Netherland Settlers Project was started, and the LNAB may need reexamined and the standard set. Opening discussion here if changes need made.

Comments

I don't know that you'd want to overrule the European Aristocracy group's decision - they have a LOT more factors to consider than the New Netherland Settlers project.

WikiTree guidelines say to use what the person used in their lifetime, so I don't know that the name set by the European Aristocracy group is intended to be used for all following generations (sorry - I don't know enough about the European Aristocracy's guidelines to help apply their guidelines).

The New Netherland Setters project tries to be super flexible about "LNAB" decisions - particularly because the Dutch at the time didn't really have a "last name at birth." So we frequently include "prefix names" (such as "van" "des" and "du")... I believe that's bending WikiTree guidelines a bit (which suggest prefix names should not be included in the WikiTree ID/LNAB field).

For example, we went from "van Meteren" to "Van Meter" to "VanMeter" as the different generations adopted different stylings.

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took me a while to find the project Abby had mentioned - here it is in case others wanted to check it out: European Aristocrats Project and its related Category page.

Answer 1

Abby  I don't have a strong opinion on this subject, but I have noticed that the majority of my ancestors from this line spell their name Demarest. Especially after they arrived in the new World.

Comments

It seems David is the immigrant (although I can't tell by his profile), so it would make sense to me to leave his profile as it is - Marets as LNAB but desMarets as current last name. You might want to add Demarest in the field for "Other Last Name(s)" but I wouldn't recommend changing his LNAB without appropriate primary documentation to support what he used in his lifetime.

Cheers, Liz

Answer 2

As with any name, there are two conflicting objectives:

• A temporary one, in connection with the search for duplicates, that would tend to use the "root" name as CLN in order to identify them.
• A definitive one, in connection with the final look of a profile, that would tend to use the "correct" LN as CLN.

Contributing to dozens of merges every day, I suggest to postpone the choice of the "correct" LN in favor of the "root" one for the time being.

About the specificity of Dutch/Flemish names - in which "van" or "van der" would be an intrinsic part of the name - I tend to disagree. If we get rid of the particles in the LNAB for any other European language, we should do the same for these ones.

Answer 3

I just posted a LONG response on another question (lots of specifics, so I won't add a link).  The bottom line though... we're not setting a standard - not for an entire line, at least. Following is from my other post on the subject:

Cheers, Liz

Comments

I'm not sure I've been expressing myself very well in trying to describe WikiTree's policy of using what the person used in their lifetime for Last Name at Birth (LNAB). Part of the problem is Dutch naming conventions of the time.

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WikiTree policy allows for each individual profile to have a unique

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name, if each individual was known to have used that unique name during his or her lifetime. (See Name Fields: Use their conventions instead of ours.)