> > > 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>