What name should be used when an immigrant's last name is different from birth name?

Question

The profile has the birth (Auer) and current last name (Ours) reversed.  This person was born Auer in Germany and took the name Ours after immigrating to America in 1753.  Should these be reversed in this profile or should a new profile be created with the names correct?

Answer 1

Ronald Reed ..

Good question. His last name at birth should be his given name "Auer" as you've indicated.

His transitioned name "Ours" should be added as his current last name.

You should first try and contact the profile manager to change the last name at birth. You should provide research, sources and documentation if possible.

Profile manager: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ours-81

Interesting change.

Comments

So each person in the family that immigrated should have the name Auer as their birth name, except for the spouse.  Then the descendants of the immigrants could then use the adopted new last name of Ours as their birth name?

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Ronald, that's precisely the way it would work, except that Johann's profile has no connections at all - no parents, siblings, spouses, or children - and it is completely empty other than birth and death dates/places.  The profile came from a gedcom import with an annotation that it is from an "unsourced family tree" that was handed down to the profile manager.

If you have sources for additional information and/or family members, it would be wonderful if you could contact the profile manager about correcting the LNAB (Last Name At Birth).  You can add your sources, since the profile is open, and you can also add profiles for the rest of his family.

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I have a source.  The German marriage record which includes his name, spouse's name, groom's father's full name and bride's father's full name.  I was not going to add it until the name stuff gets straightened out on the profile. I also have a German baptismal record as a source for a son of his, which is my line.   I don't want to put sources in a profile that is incorrect and create more confusion plus potentially have other people link to it causing a mess.

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Greetings Ronald .. Great work discovering the marriage record. 

One of the values and benefits of being a WikiTreer is our process of collaboration.  Your service commitment to accuracy and correct information is some of our primary WikiTree elements. 

Hopefully, the profile manager is on board with the same commitment and will collaborate with you to develop this profile. However, with your dedicated commitment, requirement for accuracy and your ability to add a source ; I think what ever you can do to add to this profile would be a collaborating improvement. 

Have you contacted the profile manager ? 

I'll help ..

C'est Bon Magnifiique ..  

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Thank you for the complements and support.  The profile manager did respond and added me to the trusted list.  I was surprised since I did not see where they had made any contributions to anything since January.  I had explained what needed done in the message but he did not respond with any comment.  I took that as a go-ahead and do it.  I got the names corrected and sources added.  I am now properly tied back to my 5x great grandfather in Germany.  I have ran across several Ours and Auer profiles that are incorrect while searching for one to tie in to.  Now, can an Ours ID be merged into an Auer ID or would the names need corrected before the merge?

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That is soooooo nice to hear wonderful collaboration stories like this, Ronald and it must be the greatest feeling to extend your ancestors that far back (I'm jealous!).

All you have to do is to change the LNAB, which can only be done by someone on the trusted list (so I've been told - I always thought it had to be a manager).  If you edit the profile, now you should see a little link next to the Last Name At Birth that you can click to change it.

The way it works technically is that a LNAB change is the same process as merging 2 profiles, but you don't have to be concerned with that.  Of course the WikiTree ID will change when you change the LNAB.

If you need to change the LNAB on other profiles, you will have to be on the trusted list to be able to do it.  If there are duplicate profiles for a person, with the 2 different LNAB's then you need to merge them and make sure that you select the correct LNAB for the end result.

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Great WikiTree Journey ! .. Ronald Reed keep up your superb work and thank you for going the distance !