> > > I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > > > is living with her son. > > > i.e. > > > Jim Jones B 1803; > > > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > > > > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > > > enter as the name of her husband? > > > > > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> > > > > We've had this discussion may times - > > what name to use for someone whose > > last name is unknown. > > > > I use Unknown. > > > > We are told that the accepted practice for a person with no last > > name is to enter it as [--?--] or something similar. Apparently, > > some genealogy programs will do this automatically when a last name > > is missing. > > > > People do all kinds of things to identify the person > > as being part of Jim Jones' family like > > Mary [Motherinlaw of Jim Jones] > > > > If you only have one Jim Jones, this might work for > > you, but I have not found that to be much of an improvement, > > since I have many people of the same name in my tree, so > > it doesn't help me much. > > > > The simplest way is to give her the last name of unknown. > > That way, you know you have to find her name, and you > > also know that you didn't omit her name by accident when > > you were entering your data. > > > > Lisa <llepore@comcast.net> > > Thank you for the responses to my question. This answers my question in > the since there is no standard answer. > > As the database gains more families, I was trying to avoid several Marys > in the index that are not traceable to a family. Same problem if I > identify Mary as Mary Unknown. > > I like the idea of tying in the family to the unknown an as in the > example above of Mary motherofJimjones. Maybe I will try Mary > JonemotherofJim, as that would tie Mary to the Jones family > specifically Jim. > > I have found incidences where two unrelated people with the same last > name have married. It keeps genealogy interesting. > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> Keith, if you can stand one more response, several years ago I adopted a method suggested by another user of my genealogy program to indicate women with an unknown maiden name. For her surname, I would put ______ (Jones) [I always use 6 underlines to keep it consistent.] The person suggesting it said that, when she took her data to a family reunion or mailed it to someone, they could see immediately that the person's maiden name was missing and often filled it in. This has worked very well for me until I found the woman's surname. Laurie Nelson "Laurie Nelson" <lanenelson1@msn.com>

> > You've all been such a tremendous help to me that I thought I would > > impose on your knowledge one more time. > > > > GGF/GGM came from Bialystock Russia =A0around 1890. > > Does anyone know of any sites that might have databases with birth/ > > death/marriage records. > > > > emmydbd > > Visit > http://jewishgen.org/ > > However Bialystock was originally in Poland. > > bob gillis <robertgil...@verizon.net> True - but the family left in the 1890-2 when it was still Russia

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> Nothing, until you find out. Her husband might be Jim's father, or might be his wife's father. -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk Steve Hayes <hayesmstw@hotmail.com>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle She's Mary (Unknown) and he's (Mr) Jones. I use Mr. or Miss to differentiate an unknown male from an unknown female. Now, whether she is actually Jim's wife's mother rather than Jim's dad's 2nd wife -- beyond the scope of your question. (g) Cheryl singhals <singhals@erols.com>

> > > > I'm interested in what people do on this one. > > > > > > > > Suppose you output a report from your favourite genealogical program > > > > in say DOC or RTF format because you want to put it through some > > > > manual editing in a word processing program. > > > > > > > > What is it you want to do? Is it to tweak the content (sounds a bit > > > > dubious - why wasn't it right in the first place)? Or perhaps you > > > > want to massage the appearance in some way. > > > > > > > > Peter J Seymour > > > > > > This very very general question is rather irrelevant unless we know > > > what program you are using, what you expect to do or what problems > > > you are encountering. > > > > .... > > > > > bob gillis > > > > In clarification, I engage in family history research in a small way .... > >I have been trying to get a better grip on some of the more detail > >points among all this. The comments made by various posters have > > been quite helpful. > > > > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk> www.gendatam.com > > Peter, > .... > In lieu of wp functionality, may I suggest you look at gdbi and how > it makes use of the lifelines reports/report language? If you > decide to adopt/adapt those/that, you have "instant" wp-like > functionality and allow your users the ability to create > customi{s,z}ed outputs. > > Sun-tanned Ol' Bob Melson I hadn't really been aware of GDBI but having found it, I find it is a fairly omniverous sourceforge project with various points of interest, if only academic. Gendatam Suite does have an internal scripting facility used for the newer style of reports and for forms and templates. I have been considering encapsulating the various standard report bulding blocks in subroutines accessible to scripting (easily done, it is just a matter of getting down to it)and this would further streamline the specification of reports. This would also facilitate the control of reports via user-setable options. It is really a question of just how far do you go in providing the user with choice. Peter Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> In spite of all the suggestions for "unknown" I use ??? when either name is unknown. Missing last names show up first on the alpha listing and there is no doubt about what is missing. I don't like explanations vice names - inconsistencies in lists bug me. Hugh Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan)

> > I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > > is living with her son. > > i.e. > > Jim Jones B 1803; > > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > > enter as the name of her husband? > > > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> > > We've had this discussion may times - > what name to use for someone whose > last name is unknown. > > I use Unknown. > > We are told that the accepted practice for a > person with no last name is to enter it as > [--?--] or something similar. Apparently, some > genealogy programs will do this automatically > when a last name is missing. > > People do all kinds of things to identify the person > as being part of Jim Jones' family like > Mary [Motherinlaw of Jim Jones] > > If you only have one Jim Jones, this might work for > you, but I have not found that to be much of an improvement, > since I have many people of the same name in my tree, so > it doesn't help me much. > > The simplest way is to give her the last name of unknown. > That way, you know you have to find her name, and you > also know that you didn't omit her name by accident when > you were entering your data. > > Lisa <llepore@comcast.net > I would use Mary JONES* to indicate that Jones probably is not her maiden name. My genealogy program would then sort it at the end of the JONESes.

> > I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > > is living with her son. > > i.e. > > Jim Jones B 1803; > > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > > enter as the name of her husband? > > > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> > > We've had this discussion may times - > what name to use for someone whose > last name is unknown. > > I use Unknown. > > We are told that the accepted practice for a person with no last > name is to enter it as [--?--] or something similar. Apparently, > some genealogy programs will do this automatically when a last name > is missing. > > People do all kinds of things to identify the person > as being part of Jim Jones' family like > Mary [Motherinlaw of Jim Jones] > > If you only have one Jim Jones, this might work for > you, but I have not found that to be much of an improvement, > since I have many people of the same name in my tree, so > it doesn't help me much. > > The simplest way is to give her the last name of unknown. > That way, you know you have to find her name, and you > also know that you didn't omit her name by accident when > you were entering your data. > > Lisa > llepore@comcast.net Thank you for the responses to my question. This answers my question in the since there is no standard answer. As the database gains more families, I was trying to avoid several Marys in the index that are not traceable to a family. Same problem if I identify Mary as Mary Unknown. I like the idea of tying in the family to the unknown an as in the example above of Mary motherofJimjones. Maybe I will try Mary JonemotherofJim, as that would tie Mary to the Jones family specifically Jim. I have found incidences where two unrelated people with the same last name have married. It keeps genealogy interesting. Again thank you for assistance with my question. Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net>

Bob Melson wrote: > <snip> > > In lieu of wp functionality, may I suggest you look at gdbi and how > it makes use of the lifelines reports/report language? If you > decide to adopt/adapt those/that, you have "instant" wp-like > functionality and allow your users the ability to create > customi{s,z}ed outputs. Pray tell, what is gbdi? bob gillis bob gillis <robertgillis@verizon.net>

> What's the wife's/daughter's maiden name? Absent that knowledge, > how 'bout "LNU" or a blank? > > Shameless Ol' Bob <amia9018@mypacks.net> Anyone considering using some symbols or acronym for an unknown surname, should first read the following article in the RootsWeb Review archives entitle In Search of the Wild LNUs: http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/review/20030827.txt Joan JYoung6180@aol.com

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> We've had this discussion may times - what name to use for someone whose last name is unknown. I use Unknown. We are told that the accepted practice for a person with no last name is to enter it as [--?--] or something similar. Apparently, some genealogy programs will do this automatically when a last name is missing. People do all kinds of things to identify the person as being part of Jim Jones' family like Mary [Motherinlaw of Jim Jones] If you only have one Jim Jones, this might work for you, but I have not found that to be much of an improvement, since I have many people of the same name in my tree, so it doesn't help me much. The simplest way is to give her the last name of unknown. That way, you know you have to find her name, and you also know that you didn't omit her name by accident when you were entering your data. My 2 cents, Lisa llepore@comcast.net

Peter J Seymour wrote: > In clarification, I engage in family history research in a small way > (ie for my extended family) and I engage in software development > again I suppose in a small way where I have my own genealogical > program. I invited the discussion because I am trying to get a better > grip on the output requirements for such a program. > > Suitable output requirements depend first of all on who the user is - > amateur, professional, beginner, experienced and so on. Beyond that > there seem to be some definite modes of output for reports: -- screen > -- printer -- plain text file for subsequent ad-hoc data processing > -- pdf file for subsequent viewing/printing -- rtf (etc) file for > word processing -- csv file (where the data is appropriate) -- image > (jpg etc) -- webpage (I'm not keen on this one, it is too easy to do > inappropriate publishing) Peter, I think you are way behind the times. Many genealogy database programs already output to the native format of many word processors and included exhibits whether text or picture. Only the free or pared down versions limit output to text and rtf. More and more programs are implementing web page publishing either included in the program or as an add on. Many programs include multiple languages. For getting ideas on what you should include in a new program review the features that other programs available in Europe and North America already have. Browse the lists and forums for existing programs to see what features users would like to have. bob gillis > I have been trying to get a better grip on some of the more detail > points among all this. The comments made by various posters have been > quite helpful. > > Peter www.gendatam.com > Peter J Seymour <mozng@pjsey.demon.co.uk>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, =A0 What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nut...@sbcglobal.net> I'm sure someone with more knowledge will respond also, but I believe in the timeframe you're mentioning the term "in-law" could also mean a step relationship. So in this case, Mary Jones could be the stepmother of Jim Jones rather than his wife's mother. Jennifer Widmerpole <clark1528@aol.com>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. i.e. Jim Jones B 1803; Mary Jones B:1780 > mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> Rules were different way back. MAYBE they are both a Jones.

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle Leave her surname blank. When you find the birth surname of Mrs Jim Jones you can add a married name. Then search the Census for the area say 1830 on for Jones and her married surname.. Of course if Jim Jones married Elizabeth Jones, the her married name would be Jones. bob gillis bob gillis <robertgillis@verizon.net>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> To be completely correct, the plural is mothers-in-law. :-) I usually leave the first name field empty in such cases, though I frequently put "Unknown" when I don't know a surname. So in my own records for a situation like this one, I'd most likely enter "Jones" for his father and "Mary Unknown" for his mother. -- Steve W. Jackson Montgomery, Alabama "Steve W. Jackson" <stevewjackson@knology.net>

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? Until you find his full name, 'Mr. Jones' ?? > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> Be cautious, in-law didn't always mean what it is assumed to mean today. Check the relationship first.

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> In situations such as these I assign a surname as UNKNOWN, i.e. Mary UNKNOWN. Padraic

> have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net I think this is a census misunderstanding. Wife gives the name of her husband as Jim Jones. She says my mother-in-law is Mary Jones. Ergo, Mary Jones is listed as mother-in-law.

> I have several situations where a person listed as a mother in law > is living with her son. > i.e. > Jim Jones B 1803; > Mary Jones B:1780 mother-in-law. > > Since her maiden name probably is not Jones, What name do you > enter as the name of her husband? > > Keith Nuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> What's the wife's/daughter's maiden name? Absent that knowledge, how 'bout "LNU" or a blank? Shameless Ol' Bob -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande MicroSolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. Thomas Jefferson Bob Melson <amia9018@mypacks.net>