Why don't the example profiles in the style guide for Name Fields for European Aristocrats match the style guide?

Question

None of the profiles used as examples in the style guide follow the style guide nor do many European Aristocrats profile. 

These are some examples given in the style guide, bolded values highlight the differences.

Richard I of Normandy Normandie-30

Name Fields	Style Guide	Profile value
Proper First Name:	Richard	Richard I
Preferred First Name:	Richard I, Duc	Richard I
Last Name at Birth:	Normandie	Normandie
Current Last Name:	de Normandie	de Normandie
Other Last Names:	of Normandy	Duc de Normandie

Richard's profile doesn't contain Normandy in any field. Looking at the merges on its changes page, this profile has been merged into 26 times since March 2013.  I counted 19 merged profiles containing Normandy in the profile-id.  

Henry VIII of England Tudor-4

	Guide	Profile
Prefix:		King
Proper First Name:	Henry	Henry
Preferred First Name:	Henry VIII, King	Henry
Other Nicknames:		Henry VIII
Last Name at Birth:	Tudor	Tudor
Current Last Name:	Of England	Tudor
Other Last Names:		of England

Edward Longshanks Plantagenet-2

	Guide	Profile
Prefix:		King
Proper First Name:	Edward	Edward
Preferred First Name:	Edward I, King	Edward
Other Nicknames:	Longshanks, King of England, Hammer of the Scots	Longshanks, Hammer of the Scots, King of England
Last Name at Birth:	Plantagenet	Plantagenet
Current Last Name:	Of England	England
Other Last Names:		of Westminster
Suffix:		I

John of Gaunt Plantagenet-66

	Guide	Profile
Prefix:		King
Proper First Name:	John	John
Preferred First Name:	John [1]	John
Other Nicknames:	Duke of Lancaster	1st Duke of Lancaster, Duke of Aquitaine, King of Castile, Beauford of Gaunt
Last Name at Birth:	Plantagenet	Plantagenet
Current Last Name:	Of Gaunt	of Gaunt
Other Last Names:	of Lancaster	Plantagenet

[1] Should this be John I, Duke? 

Answer 1

For my two cents worth, I think the problem is that it is not easy to find these naming guidelines on Wikitree.  

Many people join Wikitree, create their profiles from GEDCOM files, dont realise there are strict rules about naming standards, and by the time they discover these rules exist, the problems have already become embedded in their profiles and they get discouraged.

I believe the FAQ sections of Wikitree need more prominence, and in particular, I dont think a newbie would be able to find the naming style guidelines for medieval and Aristo profiles unless by some kind of lucky chance, the said newbie was cruising the G2G feeds and worked out that a project existed that created them.

I would put a sentence in bold type on the Wikitree home page that says "if you are creating medieval profiles, please read these guidelines before you do".  and then link to the naming standards page, rather than having these rules buried away via  a link on a project page.

Sometimes I think Wikitree members forget how confusing this site (and things like naming standards) can be to the uninitiated :-)

Comments

Point well taken.

WikiTree is confusing. There's a lot to it. I wish we could make it simple by just having more instructions in more places. Unfortunately, it's sometimes the case that the more instructions you have, the less any of them get read.

I'm not sure the home page is the right place for these instructions. It would be better if they were more contextual. Perhaps if you're entering a date before X they could appear on the profile-creation form.

Even broader than this is the Level II Wiki Genealogist plan where you couldn't create or edit a profile of a person born before X without confirming you understand certain instructions.

Answer 2

The bolded parts don't match the style guide, though. For instance, I know for sure the style guide makes clear that King should not be used as a prefix. And Richard I should not be a proper first name; just Richard is correct.

Could you point to specific differences between the guide and the examples? Because I'm not seeing any problems with these examples (as they are shown on the help page).

Comments

Lianne, I see a problem with the first one. His LNAB is Normandie, whereas the other two use Tudor and Plantagenet, not a place name.

Maybe Richard I wasn't associated with a "house"?

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Got it, Maryann.

I was actually pointing out an inconsistency across the style guide examples themselves. Why is one using a place name (Normandie) and the other two use a house name (Tudor, Plantagent)? 

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House names are supposed to be used before locational LNABS.

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I think the early Dukes of Normandy didn't really have a house name and Normandie or Normandy became the recognised house name for William the Conqueror once he became King of England and for his two sons who ruled after him.

Answer 3

Personally I think the euroaristo naming standards need reviewing.  I appreciate that members of the group put in a lot of time to come up with the existing standards, but any standards/policies etc need to be reviewed after they have been put into practice for a period of time.

As Maryann points out there appear to be elements of the standards that aren't working or being used consistently, even by the Euroaristo members themselves,

Comments

You nailed the number one, biggest issue on the head.  The biggest problem is that too many people are not following the standards that are in place -- newbies, leaders, project members, and many others.

Not only that, but the profile managers are not going into the profiles they manage and bringing them into line with the standards.  I recently posted on G2G and asked everyone to do this.  Has everyone involved in this discussion 'fixed' all of the profiles they manage?  Do you all 'fix' the profiles (if you're a leader) or send a message to the profile manager on those profiles you come across that have the LNAB wrong?  It's a huge task, but one that is vital to our project's success.  Thank you to those that have done this, and a request to anyone that reads this to make this a priority.

Answer 4

My 2 cents:

• I see no reason to use "Normandy" in the first example, has he had no connection with England, as far as I know. Moreover, toponymic names should be used when no clear patronymic name is available.
• The "real" profiles are better than the guide ones, IMHO.

I advocated for some changes in the rules, but have been asked to stop doing that.

Comments

Hi Jacques,

 

I think you have more than 2 cents in there.  "No connection with England"! Surely you jest? 

1. Richard, was the father of an amazing woman, known to me as Emma of Normandy (although Normandy is not contained in any of her name fields either), who became Queen Consort of England, Denmark and Norway, and was a major player in pre-Norman English history. Sadly, her profile on WikiTree tells us nothing about how remarkable she was.
2. Through his daughter Emma, Richard was the grandfather of two Kings of England. Edward the Confessor and Harthacnut.
3. Through his son Richard, he was the great grandfather of Guillaume le Bâtard aka William the Conqueror, King of England.
4. Elizabeth I was the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand daughter of Richard The Fearless;
5. I could list all the Monarchs of England post The Bastard and up to Elizabeth II and a large percentage of the peerage, nobility and gentry of England post-conquest.
6. And judging by the number of people claiming descent from English royalty, probably a large chunk of the population of the USA.

Jumping off that soapbox now!

I thought the whole point of WikiTree's collaborative one-world tree was to show how interconnected we are?  Does it matter how "connected with England" any single leaf is? How are we are growing a worldwide tree that's free and accessible to everyone, if access is retricted because of language barriers?  

What harm in putting "of Normandy" in his "Other Last names"?

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Of course because of royal inter-marriage, he is the ancestor of not just the English royal family but probably all of the royal families of Europe and not just 'a large chunk of the population of the USA' but a large chunk of the population of the world.

If we are truly one-world, then we have to be prepared to have not just 'of Normandy' in the 'Other Last Names' but whatever the equivalent is, in German, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Swahili or Mandarin. :)

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too true!

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Using ex post logic won't help here. Richard, during his lifetime, had no connection with England. Therefore, I see no reason to use Normandy for him.

Answer 5

I hesitate to bring this up, but it may be helpful.

The real problem (aka the elephant in the room) is that people are editing these profiles 1) who don't know the guidelines and/or don't want to follow them; and/or 2) who don't understand basic principles of genealogy and/or pre-modern history.

Because of the nature of the platform, their edits cannot be easily rolled back.

I don't think we're going to achieve any consistency until the above changes in some way.

Comments

Thanks Lianne, but I think most royal women do at least take on their husband's toponymic name; in this case Magdalene is referred to as Kurprinzessin von Brandenburg, and if she had survived long enough would have been the Kurfürstin von Brandenburg.  I'm guessing here but I think she would have been legally considered a member of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

Queens who rule in their own right like Elizabeth II, usually don't take on their husband's name but most royal and noble women did.

I think this really needs to be clarified, as I don't think it's just me who is confused by this issue.  As I've said before having some examples of women in the naming standards would help immensely.

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In the pre-modern period, that's completely determined by context, and controlled by multiple factors. No standardization is possible.

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Sorry Roger, let me get this straight.  This whole discussion thread has been about applying naming standards and you are now saying that in some situations no standardisation is possible?

I mean I do agree that we are really trying to impose modern naming standards to an era and a group of people that don't fit those standards.  I would even go on to say that those standards are culturally biased towards people who are mainly English speaking of British ancestry.  However that is the way Wikitree and almost all other genealogical programs and software are set up and we have to work within those limitations.

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There are areas where standardization is sensible and possible, and areas where it's not. CLN is an area where it's not possible, so what we do is make as good a decision as we can make based on contemporary accounts of what the person expected to be called.

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I see no reason to mention "of Saxony". It would be against the rules, IMHO.

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Jacques, are you saying that "of Saxony" shouldn't be in OLN? Because according to the standards, I believe that's exactly the kind of thing that should be in OLN.

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What is exactly his direct connection with the English-speaking world ? I see none.

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On my understanding, that's immaterial. OLN is, among other things, for ways that people today, including Anglophone people, might know the person.

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Right. So Queen Elisabeth II will become, among others, d'Angleterre, d'Inglatera, van Engeland. As far as I know, there are some 8'000 languages on Earth. We might have a space problem.

IMHO, we already have enough problems to mention all the names under which a person was known in its "native" language without adding them in foreign languages.

There are cases for which the use of multiple languages is meaningful (e.g Charlmagne / Karl der Grosse, Guillaume le Conquérant / William the Conqueror), but this does not apply necessarily to their anscestors.

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I'd have to agree with Jacques on this one. Since we can't include every language in the Other Last Names, I think it should only be languages that have some connection to that person.

Answer 6

The problem is, even though we established rules years ago, and maybe should be revisited, the rules are not used by all members even though they should be. This is a major reason many of us who used to contribute a lot no longer do.

Comments

Lindsay, I think the root of the problem is that the people who don't pay attention are allowed to edit. If there were a way to keep them from editing, it would help. It might even solve a great many of the problems.

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Well said. :)

 

*waves at Roger*

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Spot on.  This is a huge problem which Kathy and I are currently addressing.  I don't know whether anything will come of it...

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We really do need to get the Level II quiz together. I know this is something we've been talking about for years; it's just been so hard to write the questions for it. John Schmeeckle was working on this recently. We'll need to check in on how he's doing. I know he was trying to get various project leaders contributing questions and answers.

Answer 7

I think a lot of your questions, Maryann, have been answered by others here.  I am posting, in a separate post on G2G, a guideline for naming standards.  I've had others that are or have been involved in leading the EuroAristo project review it, and it is a consensus of proper standards.  I would appreciate if everyone would read and adhere to the standards.  If someone refuses to adhere to the standards, they need to drop out of the project and remove themselves from being a profile manager on medieval and earlier profiles.  I'm sorry if this seems somewhat brash; it's not intended that way.  But we need to get these profiles standardized, and many leaders (see their comments) have quit participating in the project because of so many people doing as they please with these profiles.

This will also be posted to the project site soon.

I am requesting that everyone start working on the profiles they manage to bring them into compliance.  And please continue to post questions on G2G if you need recommendations and/or clarification.

Darlene - Co-Leader, European Aristocrats Project

Comments

Here's the link for the separate post: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/84971/proper-name-data-fields-medieval-earlier-profiles-euroaristo