> > 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>