"Keith Nuttle" <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > > 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. Very BAD. I have seen others who do that then pass on their data to other researchers. The other researchers, not speaking the same language, think it's a real surname. I have seen this happen for "unbekannt", German for unknown. This is no different than using the acronym "LNU". > > 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. I use a single question mark, separated by spaces on either side, to indicate this. A question mark adjacent to a name without a space expresses uncertainty about that name. A question mark adjacent to a parenthetical grouping of multi-word names expresses doubt about the entire entry enclosed. I use a single dash as a placeholder for a given name when no name was ever assigned. Don't use "unnamed" for the same reason as above. > > 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> The usage of any TEXT (i.e. alphabetics) as a placeholder for an unknown value is dangerous. Much (if not all) software treats text as a real entry. You don't want such entries to be returned in queries such as "give me all surnames that have a U in them". A non-alphabetic placeholder is the only valid solution to avoid such problems.