Stirring up a hornet's nest...

Question

I'm probably going to stir up a hornet's nest with this one, but...

Since we are generally required to give location names according to how they were used at the time of the person, should not all those Euroaristos (and others) born in, say, the "County of Flanders" for example, have their birth location changed to "Comté de Flandres'? Profile example below.

Would this not also apply to English place names using Old English instead of the modern names? Gaelic for Scotland?

I understand that many folks, including me, would struggle with or not even recognize a place if the modern names weren't used. 

DON'T HIT ME! I'm just wondering, that's all!

Comments

Pip - you're not the first, nor will you likely be the last, to venture into this topic. And yes - you're likely to get some interesting responses.

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The modern name of the medieval entity which Gilbert was from, in the local official language, is in fact:

Graafschap Vlaanderen

Maybe it could be argued it was the Markgraafschap Vlaanderen.

On the other hand, if it is correct that Gilbert was from Aalst then he was in a conquered territory that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The "Land" of Aalst is sometimes called various things meaning "Imperial Flanders".

So perhaps we should use modern standard German and say he is from Reichsflandern? :) This term has Wikipedia articles in several languages.

(Honestly we have had serious discussions on Wikitree about whether to use German for medieval people associated with what is now Belgium. See https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/614816/limburg-or-limbourg-another-dynasty-name-question)

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It's funny that all the possible variants of the last name (Gand, Gaunt, Gant, Ghent with or without de/of...) are there except the modern local name of the place, which is Gent (no H)

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Pip, I don't want to hijack this question because it is such an important one to address.  I just want to point out that it should not be restricted to ancient times.  I'm working in the 1850 to pre-World War II era and have the same problems figuring out what country a piece of land was in when someone was born, which also impacts what language would have been in use, and I am struggling to even find the right information in any language.  Please see all the "maybe", "possibly", "perhaps", etc. that I put into my grandfather's profile because I gave up completely on ever being able to figure it out.

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Hi Gaile, I think there are differences.

When we work on pre 1500 published books are often the tie-breaker which helps us find reasonable compromises. Almost everyone we can trace pre-1500 has something published about them and is notable at least from a genealogical point of view. With people who moved around in recent centuries we generally have no such help.

But the bright side in recent centuries is that we generally have some kind of contemporary written evidence really written by someone who knew the person. This can often be used to come to a reasonable decision.

Answer 1

Seems the drive is towards making the information easily comprehensible to say a 10th century monk. That achieved it would not then mean anything to the average, moderately well-educated citizen of today's world. Counter-productive. Entire subject needs review.

Comments

True. There is an argument for sometimes leaving an inconsistent system in place because it is not causing too many problems, and any attempt to "solve" all problems would lead to bigger problems.

I only mentioned Latin because it is the only way to achieve what everyone seems to want to achieve. A reality check.

By the way with that in mind I should have mentioned that many individuals and families have their own modern traditional names and spellings (although of course names which seem well-known to some people might be unknown to others). Just to point to more complications.

Just to take an extreme example, should we be changing John of Gaunt to "Jean de Gand" or "Jehan de Gaunt" or "Jan van Gent" or "Joannes Gandensis"?

All of the above also applies to place names.

One standard we have often used as a tie-breaker in practice is what modern scholars write. They are often quite consistent with each other, showing that they at least have a sort of tradition for some better known terms, which helps their communication. They of course often even write special notes about this.

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Andrew, I have to admit that your keen observation above (“leaving an inconsistent system in place”) makes sense on the face of it. However, the difficulty arises when have a hard and fast rule about using the name of the place (and the name of the person). It causes confusion not only in creating profiles but editing them also. 

As to John’s comment about inconsistent spellings: which spelling to pick? 

And another: multilingual areas.

I don’t believe that there is a way to solve this difficulty. The rule must have exceptions, at least in our own minds and in praxis. And somehow, this might need to be explained in the page about naming conventions for Euroaristo profiles. 

I imagine the rule could create all sorts of problems where a place name has changed repeatedly over time for a an editor (or creator) of profiles outside looking in (or better, a modern looking back). And if the rule was to be applied diligently and consistently, then the Euroaristo project members would spend much of their time editing profiles (and much of it arguing about place and personal names.

These are my observations alone. I am not applying what I said to mean you intended what I have said. 

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CK, you make a point that all of us American history majors have to deal with. In using commonly spelled names, I don’t often make the transition to other languages well, not having a knack for it. Also, with the naming conventions as they are now means that I really don’t know what certain people are called in their profiles (Euroaristo) and have to really hunt to find a person, especially if a place name is attached to the person. Modern conventions would make that easier, for me at least, but not, I’m sure, for those who live on the Continent. I’m not suggesting this; I’m just sayin’.

This works the same with just place names. Case in point: as a history major, I studied the Treaty of Ghent. How would I know with any confidence it was the same place if the naming convention was applied consistently and if I do not have a grasp of the language(s) spoken in the area?

(Did I misread you comment above?)

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Pip I think we must be close to agreeing on most points. I think that your point about the difficulty of finding people in books is one of those useful tie-breaker things which we use to make good decisions even if it is NOT in the policies. (If it is not, maybe it should be mentioned, at least as a factor.)

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Andrew you make my point using John of Gaunt. My granddaughter who is the audience for whom I write wouldn't recognise him as other than John of Gaunt (she's a direct line descendant). She's probably quite happy with Gaunt from Ghent. I guess once he was a Duke he was mostly just Lancaster until he got above himself and I do believe that by his day even the wealthy were speaking English. Sadly I'm not a History major, gave it up for applied maths. For whom do we write?

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Good question, and I think the answer is that we write for as many groups as we can, but definitely including non-specialists. That's why I think case-by-case is not necessarily such a bad thing on this issue. By the way I guess Shakespere might be responsible for John of Gaunt's normal modern name.

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I should have mentioned: Ghent was John's real birthplace, so it was a real way of referring to him, as with his brother being Lionel of Antwerp. His father spent time in Belgium, and had a Belgian wife. Catherine Swinford was also half Belgian. Is was a time of close alliances with the southern netherlands.

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"Entire subject needs review."

This.

I'm not sure that calling William the Conqueror - Guilla(whatever) is the best way to go.  

I'm starting in to some Russian profiles and I'm expected to put their names all in Cyrillic?  To what end?  Putting an immigrants LNAB in Cyrillic pretty much cuts you off from finding any cousins on this continent.

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Yes, but entering Russian folk in Latin script amounts to telling the Russian passer-by: "Get out of here, this is an American site".

We can't please every one.

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How dramatic. Cyrilic is not hard to learn as you work, because most letters are the same as Greek or Latin. If you are working on Eastern Europe then just learn the extra letters. Easy. Problem fixed.

And it is easy to have both on a profile. Certainly for someone who migrated I expect there will be two forms of the name?

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@ Isabelle: As a Russian speaker with a presence in Russian genealogy forums and research sites I can say with some experience that Russian genealogists who don't speak English will almost never venture to Wikitree.  And for those who do, they will be Google translating the site anyways as the entire interface is in English (not American).

Who does frequent Wikitree are the English only speaking descendants who will have greater difficulty recognizing ancestor names that are written in Cyrillic.

You're right, we can't please everyone but I'm wondering if the majority aren't inconvenienced for the sake of a few.

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SJB the question you are begging is whether Wikitree should be happy with that situation.

I will once again raise the question of whether Wikitree's best potential future lies in "dumbing down" and keeping its aims narrow, Anglo-American and quantity-based ....

...or aiming higher, quality-based, and trying new things not only based on the past of wikitree and geni and whoever.

Personally I think it is very obvious.

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Isabelle, just now saw this: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/706229/king-nicholas-of-russia

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And if I look up Alienor d'Aquitaine the only profile that comes up is for her mother. Now try Elsa Triolet.

I have nothing further to say.

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touche

Answer 2

Thanks Pip for the question.

Names both personal names and place names for early profiles are a problem.  Most of the primary sources for this period are in Latin and at some point there was presumably a decision not to use Latin.

Instead the idea is to use the modern equivalent of whatever language is now spoken/written in that area.  So you are right it should be Flandres not Flanders.

I'm not aware that any of this is in a Wikitree help page, it just seems to be an accepted practice?

Comments

I should add that there was no standardised spelling of names either which can make it difficult to use the name as was used at the time period the person lived.

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Hi John. I looked and could not find a definitive answer. I would certainly understand the confusion, particularly if the older name does not compare well with the newer. As to a county being comte (on an iPad - no accent marks) and Flanders being Flandres, this is not much of a problem. 

On the other hand, the Shire of Berrock would be hard to nail down, unless one just happens to know that it is an older form of Berkshire. So I get the use of the modern. Even then, I can think of several French locations that we use that do not match the modern. Normandie, for example, where we often see Normandy. 

I hesitated to bring this up primarily because I realize that this would have to be a major undertaking. The “bot” seems to do well with US places and times (failing of course at Charlotte for Charlottetown in the mid 1700s in North Carolina - hometown ). I’m sure it would be difficult to come up with all the rules necessary, and then a place name chart that would be understood by all. Just think of all the names for York over time.

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Just saw the second comment, John, and I guess that puts it all in perspective.

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John, your answer shows how the current system can't work on Wikitree. The modern standardised language of Flanders is Dutch, not French. A medieval form of Dutch was spoken in both Gent and Aalst (Alost). So even a well-informed person like yourself, when asked to really think about it, has difficulty using this rule in practice. Of course French was spoken outside the area of French control, but so were other languages.

Furthermore, was Gilbert a person who was primarily French in any "technical" way? Putting aside the fact that many modern Flemish people grow up with the idea that the French king's claims on Flanders were unjust and ineffective, meaning they would find this a grating claim, Aalst where he came from was certainly in the empire, the zone of the East Franks (as defined by an ancient treaty), but controlled by a powerful independent country called Flanders which was technically in the zone of the West Franks. There were no nation states like today just competing and changing zones of control.

Answer 3

I’d like there to be a modern place name box to fill in (which might/ might not be the English name). Many of my family lived in my current hometown. Without even trying, I can think of about six permutations, all of which would have been appropriate at some point - and that’s since 1842. I’d like to think that using the current name would link people to their ancestors. Tagging places with original names would be ideal, but without a modern or recognised name, I wonder what purpose it would serve.

Comments

Very often there is more than one modern place name and more than one ancient one, which all have a good claim. Europe is geographically small and complicated. I do not believe that a simple usable rule can be written which will avoid creating more confusion and controversy, apart from using Latin forms. Indeed, there is no perfect solution.

Answer 4

Most of us are probably thinking about western Europe, but elsewhere in the world (eastern Europe, Middle East, India China,Japan,etc ), the standard language wasn't Latin.  Many eastern European names werfe probably Greek based.  In fact,the Roman Empire prior to 476 A.D. used many Greek names for both people and places.  I'm sure there's a way to accommodate all of it in wikitree, but not sure of all the tech ways to do ot.

Comments

I think several parts of the world will have similar issues. But it is probably best to focus on each part separately?

Answer 5

Well of course Flanders was and is Dutch speaking. So why not "Gijs van Gent"?  Why, in any case, would we use MODERN French, which no one in that time would have understood? (We've had the Guillaume discussion many times. English "William" would be closer to the original Norman French.) But what would a Flemish person have called him then? Maybe Giselbert? Would some French speakers maybe have also called him the same? Probably. Was there one language called French? Not really. What language would the people in Gent and Aalst have considered themselves to speak? Would they even have thought of themselves as speaking the same language?

...and examples like this show why there is one clear proposal which has tended to come out of such discussions about medieval Europe: 

Latin forms. 

1. Latin forms of names today, and in the past, the standard name forms for this period. For more unusual names, we sometimes don't really know how a name was pronounced in the everyday languages, only in Latin. (I recall a silly argument on SGM about the name Ebles.)

2. Many places in Europe which consider themselves this-or-that speaking today were multilingual throughout history. People were moving around a lot and often we do not even know what language they spoke at home. 

Comments

Of course at some point in history using Latin becomes silly. Unfortunately it is clear there is no single point which applies to all countries or classes of people. Belgian pedigrees tend to use Latin until the 19th century, and even in that period it is sometimes hard to be confident what modern language would have been a person's first language. In France, French began to be used for official documents before the end of the Middle Ages. (But then again, it was also used that way in England and some other areas where it was not the main language. What would we do there?)

In contrast modern languages get silly when we get back before say 1200, and certainly 1100. See the discussion about Limbourg which I cited above. I think there is a case for using Latin in such cases.

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Re - the Guillaume discussion. The opposite example is "Eleanor" of Aquitaine. I'm not arguing with her "current" name being Eleanor since she must be primarily known as Queen of England (perhaps she would be the first surprised to find it is now considered more important than her being Duchess of Aquitaine).

In France she is, unlike William the Conqueror, considered part of "our heritage" and it is really grating to have her first name at birth showing as Eleanor. Probably it does not matter. We call her Aliénor.

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Of course in books written especially about that period Eleanors are often called Alienor, even in England. I think Eleanor is a later spelling evolution. Personally I would not be opposed to letting her be Alienor as a primary first name, but I'm also not seeing it as something I have a strong opinion about.

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Isabelle, I believe that would warrant the change. What are the chances for getting that one approved?

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Well, last time I asked, someone replied "I think the best name for her is Eleanor" and that was the end of it - being well aware that I'm in the minority, I found something else to do 

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My usual response, too. Isabelle. (But I do get your point, so one more voter on your side! )

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Isabelle, I'm with you. I'm English but I've known her as Alienor for many years and first and foremost as Duchesse. Remarkable lady, an utter failure as Queen of France and in England kept under a very powerful thumb. Came into her own with John. Doubt she ever spoke a word of English.

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"Aliénor, « l'autre Aénor » en langue d'oc, est ainsi nommée en référence à sa mère Aénor. Le prénom devient Éléanor ou Élléonore en langue d'oïl, Eleanor ou Ellinor en anglais" (wikipedia)

Presumably she spoke Occitan at least part of the time since she encouraged writing in it.

Its something I've thought about before, to be consistent;shouldn't all those Counts of Tolouse be de Tolosa and Foix, de Fois have their names and places written in Occitan (but who has the expertise? (One day perhaps since it is not a dead language)

This example https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Toulouse-6  (who surely wasn't born in the Jura, whatever language we use) was born and died in Tolosa, Lengadoc

But then if we are consistent, it does make searching for people very difficult.

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Helen, correct, this is another example of how taking the logic further does not work. Occitan or Provençal was actually used in writing before northern French and it is reputed to have been the first language of several key people in English and French history. And there is even a modern version (though it is not used much).

So you could reply it is not the official language of any country.

So then the counter reply would be, either was French. Again, the logic heads us towards using Latin as the only standardized official language of most of Western Europe in the Middle Ages.

Note I am NOT saying we should take the logic that far.

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Interesting point Helen. The priority should really be to fix these wacky locations so they are at least reasonably accurate before we think of translating them in local dialects though. Those are auto-complete; there is actually a place called Toulouse-le-Château in Jura, as there is another Tours in Savoie, a Bordeaux in Loiret, and more, all resulting in very interesting locations on profiles.

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Just side issues.

1. Occitan was a "big" language in the middle ages. Dante obviously read works written in it. Richard Lionheart is said to have written in it when in prison in Austria.

2. Concerning French placenames, I have recently been doing a lot of work on Anglo-Normans, and while I generally leave birth and death places empty unless there is real evidence I have been editing the traditional citations of probable places of origin in Normandy. The standard work everyone follows (including Keats-Rohan and Complete Peerage) is Loyd, who wrote in 1951, when it seems there was very little English feeling for modern French abbreviations. (For example he abbreviates kilometres as kil.) He uses modern French placenames, but gives a complex of département, arrondisement, canton. I suppose he had, and assumed other people had, some type of printed directory or atlas. Unfortunately, it is easy to see many people trying to use these get confused and would not be able to find these places on a map, so when it is important I've been doing what I do when looking for a place in France: giving modern postcodes for the commune in brackets. These work much better on Google and Wikipedia.

Answer 6

As I am growing my own repertoire, I like the idea of the current and what it used to be for surnames, locations and the more information I see and teach myself to understand, I just feel more connected to the profile of who they were as contributors to life, and the area where they resided. Where to put the data should be standard after a few profiles completed. I'm not the greatest bio builder and am working on that. I enter family names and work diligently to get it sourced.

Comments

Good point. And one thing we can always keep in mind in order to achieve multiple aims is to include extra information and linking on profiles. In fact, the profile we are supposedly all talking about was most recently edited by me and I think it does include specific discussion about name variants and placenames.