Last name at birth sometimes defaults to Mother's maiden name

Question

Occasionally, when adding a child, the Last Name at Birth (LNAB) defaults to the mother's maiden name. I've learned to keep an eye out for this so I can fix it befor creating the profile, but since a wrong LNAB is a big deal, can we avoid defaulting it to the mother's maiden name?

Comments

If there is more than one sibling I tend to use the add siblings (that is having made sure the initial siblings have the correct details), I have not come across this before, maybe it is because I have always added the initial child via the father, but you have made me think and I will have to check.

Thanks for the prompt

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I ran into this when entering a family and started with the mother and added a child (before the father). I knew all the names but was entering in the order I had listed. Since I know to watch out for this now, I don't have the problem anymore, but I did enter a profile with the wrong LNAB and had to fix it. Since fixing a LNAB can be a problem (the id is based on it) I thought it would be good to only default LNAB if the father's last name was known and require manual entry otherwise.

Answer 1

The profile created will take the current last name from the profile from which it is created.  So I'm afraid that is something you will have to check yourself before creating a new profile.  In other words, make sure the mother has the current last name blank filled in before creating the child or the child will have her maiden name.

Answer 2

The last name default depends on the profile you started out with: if it's the mother's profile, her name will show. Just start with the father's profile

Comments

So for example.   My Alonzo Culp is the son of Nancy Jane Culp.  We do not know who his father is and he was raised with the surname Culp.  In his case, I would have started with the mother rather than the father.  So not necessarily a glitch but something definately to watch for as I too made the same mistake in the past.

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Your answer is a work around not a solution. There is basic problem of the marriage not being recognised by the software and therefore the automatic taking of the father's surname by the couple's children (as happens in Western societies).