How should I deal with female family names ending with OVA?

Question

Hi All

I have just started using WikiTree and am entering ancestors who lived in Czechoslovakia.

The family names of females are\were given the suffix OVA. That's what shows in official records so that's how I've been entering them into WikiTree.

Would it be better (for others searching for matches) to enter females without the OVA suffix?

Or, perhaps, as alternatives.

Baz

Comments

I think you're right to use the "ova" -- but I would aslo add the name without the "ova" under "Other Last Name(s)" if most people won't know to include ova on the name when searching.  You mentioned that the ova was included on official documents. Was it also used personally? (in other words, what would the person have called herself at the time?)

See more under the Help Index's Name Field

Cheers, Liz

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Hi Liz - and thanks for your reply.

I'm not yet familiar with the workings of WikiTree - hence my query - so I've done as you suggested and added the "Other Last Names".

Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of the personal use of the OVA suffix as I have spent all but the first year of my life (1947/48) living in England and I have no (known) surviving Prazak family to ask.

So far as official documents are concerned my own birth certificate (1947) shows my Czech grandmother with an accented OVE suffix and my English mother with the OVA suffix - even though she is not Czech.

The OVA or accented OVE suffix would seem to simply indicate female.

Thanks for your help.

Baz

Answer 1

I second what Liz said and I would reiterate being sure to include it without the "Ova" as an "Other Last Name".

Answer 2

-ova (or -owa in older documents) simply denotes the female form of the family name. It is declined and changes with the case of the name (genitive, dative etc) Czechs would always use this form when speaking and in modern times when writing. In older documents you may find female last names without this form or sometimes with -iana when latinized or -in when germanized. By the way, certain names change their spelling depending on the sex: Waněk or Waňkova.