Forum:Standardising page names for individuals

Forums: Index > Watercooler > Standardising page names for individuals

(NB: early part of this has been /archived. Towards the end of 2008 we got close to agreement, so nobody has to read anything from 2007 although newcomers may find it helpful as background.')

AMK152's proposal

I would like to at least propose something that can give us a start.

This is my proposed policy:

• Format: "Name (YOB-YOD)"
• For "Name," it contains at least First and Last Name (example: John Smith (1900-1985)
• If First or Last Name is unknown, use "Unknown" instead of leaving it blank or useing a "?" mark. (Example: John Unknown (1900-1985) or Unknown Smith (1900-1985)
• Surname must be maiden name, not married name.
• Middle Name is optional. (example: John Isaac Smith (1900-1985)
• Roman Numerals can be included if the contributors agree (example: John Isaac Smith IV (1900-1985) or John Smith IV (1900-1985)
• Reccommend use of only one middle name (example: use "John Isaac Smith (1900-1985) instead of John Isaac Bartholomew Robert Smith (1900-1985)
• Use "?" if year of birth or death is unknown, don't use "unk" or "unknown"
• Use "c" if year of birth or death is approx., don't use "c." or "abt" or "about"
• Use "bef" if year of birth or death is before the indicated year.
• Use "aft" if year of birth or death is after the indicated year.
• For living individuals, use only birth year in parentheses.

Basically, these have been around and used traditionally, but I suggest we at least make it official. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 21:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

All very reasonable. However, I would except the following:

Roman Numerals can be included--wouldn't recommending setting this up as a standard. Use of Roman numerals is really a "by-name", which is fairly arbitrary, and creates similar problems to the use of Jr. and Sr. If someone REALLY wants to use them, then setting up a redirect from the "by-name" to the formal name would solve the problem. That way you could use the by name in an article, but still link to the formal name.

For living individuals, use only birth year in parentheses. A) I wouldn't put in a living person in the first place, and B) if it were done I'd go with (Living). Bill Willis 12:57, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the Roman numerals part. Thing is, articles of living people have been created. People have created their own article including their birth year by choice. I say include the birth year, if the person wants it provided. If the individual does not provide or does not wish to provide their birth year, then they can use the (Living). That can be used by people who don't want to reveal their birth year. However, I do worry about a lot of the same articles that read (John Smith (Living) or even Living Smith (Living). Plus, notable individuals have their birth year revealed as they are politicians, celebrities, rich people, etc. (Such as George W. Bush (1946) or Jessica Ann Simpson (1980) or Donald John Trump (1946)). The (Living) can be used when a living person's birth year is nto specified or the person doesn't want it specified. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 13:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there any further news on this proposal? I'm new here, and Genealogy:Page_names#People_articles is not as clear as it could be. I agree with the above proposal, but really I think it's more important to have some solid guideline to which people can work, and spell it out very clearly. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 01:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Sam, the above "Proposal" is what most of the recent active contributors are using for most pages. Details of how many middle names and where the Roman numerals go are fairly insignificant in the overall scheme and can be personal preference if there is only one contributor-relative (because they are likely to involve unusual names that will appear in the same section of any automated listing and thus be quickly merged if there are in fact duplicates). We overcame the Google-search problem by introducing the simple name idea that produces a page such as Mary Brown for the search engines (and internal searches) to find; users are welcome to create such a simple page linking to each full-name page using the explanatory page for which the short-cut is hndis (which is short for "human disambiguation" and is a term borrowed from Wikipedia but used slightly differently here). If Genealogy:Page_names#People_articles is not improved/updated soon, give me a reminder! Robin Patterson 02:35, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've melded the above points into that page, and cleaned the whole thing up a fair bit. I've tried to keep every point and example that was there previously, but just make them clearer. What do you think? (I'll post something to the talk page there, too.) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 06:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above proposal and am making changes to the few pages I have created that do not follow it (things like using "?" for an unknown name instead of "Unknown"). I do not understand why we would use Roman numerals and not Sr or Jr when they are more common (as far as I know). I am also hesitant to add new pages or upload my comparably modest 4,000 plus GEDCOM until this is resolved.Bill H 15:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Sensible caution, Bill, especially as we may be on the brink of semi-automating loading Gedcoms. If you want your data preserved in public meantime, try a simple upload to WorldConnect. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Needs more certainty for GEDCOM upload

Material from Gedcoms needs to be formed into a page name (and distributed elsewhere in the article and/or its info page). Brian Yap (User:Yewenyi) was doing that, and any usable variation of his program will do the same. The program then checks whether there is a matching existing page. I'm not sure whether it will be able to recognize only a precise match or can raise the question if certain elements match; the latter would be preferable. With GEDCOM upload seeming much closer this month, we should firm up the standard that the program is to follow.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Checking for duplicates

Our existing 20,000 person pages are mostly (though far from overwhelmingly) "Firstname Middle-if-known Surname (YOB-YOD)". It may be possible for the program to ignore middle names in its first check on whether a new person from a GEDCOM is a duplicate. That would throw up a larger number that might be duplicates, where one contributor omitted a middle name but the other included it. Better to have two similar persons put on a single page for examination than to have them treated as different if they might not be. Human inspection can then sort them out at leisure.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Middle names

Whether or not the program can ignore middle names as above, I'm inclined to recommend that they not be part of future page names; for at least three reasons:

• Reduce potential programmatic duplication
• Raise Google rank
• Match Wikipedia

The full name, titles, etc, etc, will appear very close to the top of the article for quick visual checking in case the disambiguation (hndis) page does not have enough detail.

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Years

Similarly with death years (and maybe even birth years??) unless there's fairly good documentary evidence? We have several hundred pages that have only a birth year; so omitting all of them in future would not be totally radical. We have even more that have a question-mark for birth year and/or death year; nothing lost if those "years" get deleted. Wikipedia generally has no dates in person-article names. Several times, the value of having the exact same name as on Wikipedia has been recommended (because of great time-savings in view of our extensive use of Wikipedia text). To require all GEDCOM-derived page names to have no year provision would not be totally radical and would have some advantages as above:

• Reduce potential programmatic duplication
• Raise Google rank
• Match Wikipedia

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Compensatory distinguishing text, and people with no dates

Wikipedia has a variety of methods, such as "(politician)". Where we follow Wikipedia we will get that anyway. Why not use it as one of several optional distinguishers in the future?

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I like (what I take to be) the present standard: Full name (YoB-YoD), so I don't like your proposal. I think "Raise Google rank" is "the tail wagging the dog", and anyway I usually use full names with a Google search as the "First-Name Last-Name" search usually gives too many irrelevant hits. Thurstan 12:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Thurstan. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 01:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

People with no dates

There is another issue which hasn't been mentioned which I see occasionally, which is spurious links: both Robert II, King of Scotland (1316-1390) and James II, King of Scotland (1430-1460) are listed as having a daughter named Margaret (Stewart), about whom nothing more is documented. But when these two pages were created, their child lists points to Margaret Stewart (?-?), which used to be (before I changed it) a redirect to Margaret Stewart (1206-1255), a totally different woman. So if we start giving people pages "generic" names, we are going to get these spurious links. I don't think I should have to invent "Compensatory distinguishing text" for people that I have no information about (and I don't plan to name the link Margaret Stewart daughter of James II, King of Scotland, though perhaps that is what I have to do, in view of my next parenthetical). (My philosphy is that if I have nothing else to say about a child, in particular for people who died in infancy, then they don't need their own page. So I would see those "Margaret Stewart (?-?)" links as permanently red) Thurstan 04:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

And the same occurs with parents: if I know that Mary Smith's father was John (because that's what her death registration says, so it could be doubted), I would like to show it as John Smith (?-?) and never have it point to anything. If I get more info about Mary's dad, I should be able to fill in at least one date, change the link, and then create a page with a less generic name. Thurstan 04:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Good points. I suggest that if no dates are known, we just keep it as "John Smith" or "Margaret Stewart." This way, the links will go to disambiguation pages; If such a page for a person exists, the link can be changed. If not, we know that that particular person does not have an article yet. And just as you said, don't create the article if hardly anything is known. Just wait until there is more info. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 04:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The problem with Margaret Stewart (?-?) was not the creation of that link but the improper redirecting of it by someone else ignoring existing or potential inbound links that were not 1206-1255. It now, very properly, redirects to Margaret Stewart, a hndis page that will be able to show whether there is a proper target for any particular instance, and where both of the shadowy princesses can be listed as daughters of their respective fathers. Going a little further, we may soon get duplicates such as "Mary Brown (1850-?)". They can have their own hndis pages linked from "Mary Brown", though one should not expect any automatic entries. If any of them are worth writing articles for, some "Compensatory distinguishing text" will be required, and the hndis page will show which text has already been used. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 02:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

In the last few days I have noticed a number of new "(?-?)" people pages. I presume that we will see more of them once the GEDCOM upload takes off, because it is likely that (unless we set exclusion guidelines) every person mentioned in a GEDCOM will get a separate page or be added to an existing page of the same name and the program will produce a form such as "John Smith (?-?)" unless we decide that that case should be treated exceptionally. Thurstan "would like to show it as John Smith (?-?) and never have it point to anything" - but that was in the context of a manual entry where a page for John's son or daughter can simply show the father's name with no intention of making it a page unless more info comes to light. I've made a few links for such people, generally not adding "(?-?)" but just using the plain name (which I presume AMK152 prefers) and sometimes creating the target hndis page soon after, and listing John there as "father of [[Mary Smith (1850)]]" or whatever. John Smith (?-?) can easily redirect to the same John Smith so that all such people can be noted there without needing separate pages. There should be no actual articles where the date section is "(?-?)"; each page of that form should redirect to the plain name, which becomes a hndis page that sorts them out. Not a problem for manual entries; and I suggest that we encourage contributors to do that or to link from articles straight to a plain hndis page rather than to leave a John Smith (?-?) sitting rather isolated somewhere to confuse a reader of another page that creates the same link for a clearly different person, as happened with Margaret Stewart (?-?). I further suggest that the GEDCOM process deal with such dateless persons by one of two methods:

1. omit the brackets right from the start and create or add to the plain name page using the GEDCOM data for that person
2. create the "(?-?)" page but turn it into a redirect to the plain name as above; that would create an apparently unnecessary redirect but if it happened programmatically it should take no more time and would forestall the manual creation of a "(?-?)" article.

Until I know more detail of how the GEDCOM process works, I can't firm up the above ideas. I think it needs a separate forum with headings for distinguishing parts of the process. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 06:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Google rank

Genealogy is 48 on a Google for "Richard Tol", which is pretty good.

But, if you want to improve that, two things matter for Google. First, what do people look for? "William I King of England" ranks 9th, while "William the Conqueror" ranks 50+. This is partly because our page name refers to the king, not the conqueror.

Second, outside links matter, which is why I put two templates on Wikipedia that refer back to us. Rtol 12:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I prefer using William I, King of England. There are many names we could use. I went to Google and found the following:

• People seeking genealogical information on William who get Familypedia:
• "William the Conqueror genealogy" ranks 6th on Google.
• "William I, King of England genealogy" ranks 1st on Google.

• Searching "William I, King of England" on Google brings Wikipedia's article up 1st.
• Searching "William the Conqueror" on Google brings Wikipedia's article up 1st.

• Actually, whenever I want to search for something on Google, typically the first result is Wikipedia. Just like Rtol said, link Familypedia's article from Wikipedia. Eventually, we could have as many as thousands of links to Familypedia all across Wikipedia. And just think at how many people use Wikipedia. It's ranked one of the top visited sites on the Internet. Links on Wikipedia itself will bring in people, especially as Familypedia grows. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 01:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Subpages

Just like "/info" all subpages should be in lowercase letters only, such as "/pedigree" "/descendants" and "/ahnentafel". This is my proposal. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 04:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. See Forum:Standardizing subpages of people pages. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 03:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Royalty/People with titles

Royalty

Previous discussions:

• Forum:Noble/Royal Titles
• Forum:Royalty- Surname encoding

There seems to be no set standards regarding names of pages for royalty, although there has been discussion. I would like to see it consistant with names of non-royalty, such as John Smith (1900-1985). Basic proposal as to what should be in the page name for royalty

• First name and common middle name(s) - preferable one middle name.
• Surname (examples: Plantagenet, Capet, Bourbon)
• Most significant title (examples: ", Holy Roman Emperor" ", "King of France" and "Count of Gloucester") Basically - "NAME I SURNAME, TITLE of PLACE" such as "John Plantagenet, King of England (1167-1216)" - thus we distingush them as roaylty and still use the First Name Last Name format. However, there is something we must settle in regards to a title: Emperors of Empires.
• "Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire" or "Holy Roman Emperor"?
• "Emperor of the Roman Empire" or "Roman Emperor"?
• "Emperor of the Persian Empire" or "Persian Emperor"?

I would prefer using EMPIRE Emperor. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 20:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You would prefer to reverse the wording order just because of a small difference in nomenclature? King of England but not Emperor of Austria-Hungary or IMPERATOR ROMANVS?? So why not British Emperor? Please explain your preference. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• Using Emperor and Empire in the page name seems repetitive than just Persian Emperor or Roman Emperor. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 20:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Titles

In this section I am referring to Dr., Rev., Lt., Pvt., Capt., Col., etc.

• I do not prefer titles in pages names. However, I am neutral on the use of "Sir." This should be discussed. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 20:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

On the whole I agree that we don't want titles to start names. (I'll have to accept a change to Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell!) "Sir" is not exceptional (because it can have more than one meaning, such as knight or baronet) and is often not part of a person's name when many of that person's events take place. We have, for convenience, a page for President Obama but it redirects to a page starting with "Barack". — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Much of the following appears to be a copy from WeRelate. It would help if Fred could tell us which is his and which is someone else's. (We ARE improving our wheel, not inventing one.) — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Why do you try to reinvent the wheel ?

You can learn from other Genealogy Wiki's and improve the wheel ! (WeRelate)

Names

Keep it simple Many documents, sources, and references refer to your ancestors only by their given names and surnames. Your cousins may not be aware of middle names, nicknames, or titles. It is less confusing if page titles are limited to only the given name and surname. For instance, suppose I didn't know my great grandmother's middle name or title and you did. We could easily create duplicate person and family pages without ever knowing it, because the pages would have different titles if you included her middle name. Keeping the page titles simple reduces duplication and keeps us on the same page. But what if two different people have the same given name and surname? Middle names, nicknames and titles can be entered in specific areas on the individual's person page. Also, WeRelate will automatically assign each person an index number to make her/his page title unique (e.g. Wayne Phillips (1)). Keeping it simple makes it easier for your cousins to identify common ancestors and collaborate with you. [edit section]Match/merge function Because of names such as "St. John," "de la Vega," and "Von Monfrans," the match/merge function considers all words after the first space as the surname. Do not enter other information such as suffixes, prefixes, titles, nicknames or middle name(s). For example, to create a page for Captain Robert Harold Townsend III, enter "Robert" as the given name and "Townsend" as the surname. There will be an opportunity to enter the other information later. [edit section]Person index numbers Many persons have the same given name and/or surname. Some even share the same middle names, nicknames, or titles. For instance, there were six men named Lewis Green Caddell, all contemporaries of the same small frontier town and buried in the same cemetery. As they share similar birth and death information, it is difficult to tell them apart. WeRelate adds a person Index number to make each one unique. So, "Lewis Caddell (1)" has a separate page from "Lewis Caddell (2)", and so on. If you are adding a person for the first time, do not use a person index number. WeRelate will give your person a unique person index number the first time you save. When adding a person who already has a person page on WeRelate to a list of children on a family page, remember to include that person's index number. If you don't include the number, the system will assume that she/he is a new individual and assign another index number. In addition to person index numbers, WeRelate also uses family index numbers to classify families. Click here for more information about family index numbers and how to use person index numbers on family pages. Pedigree charts and maps

Medieval Nobility

I'm definitely making this up as I go along, the conventions I generally follow are thus:

If there's a wikipedia page for the person, use that name as the name of the werelate page Change the "preferred" name of the page to be the same as that used for the page name. Retain the unique set of other forms as alternates. If there is a wikipedia page for the person, always add a source reference for that page. Try to preserve any source citations that may exist in the old text body, even if I don't understand what they mean or how they work - just pull any sources from the body of the page into individual werelate source entries (don't try to reformat them or tidy them, unless you are familiar with the reference and know how to turn the existing format into something more werelate consistent). Unless the page has a body of text that was maintained/modified for werelate, junk it in favor of sourcing the wikipedia page If the person does not have a backing wikipedia page, but is named in a wikipedia reference, change the werelate page name to be consistent with the wikipedia usage (this is common for wives, who are often only noted by name in their husband's page and indicated as children of a particular father). Try to remember to change the name of family pages to be consistent with changed names of the husband and wife pages, with an "and" in the middle. If you don't have a wikipedia page, or a wikipedia page for an adjacent ancestor to go from, there does seem to be a wikipedia convention, but it's not universally followed and I've never gone that route. Instead, I choose among the duplicated page names for a person, keeping the name that seems most "helpful" (by no particular objective standard). In so far as there is a wikipedia convention for royalty and people living before the advent of modern given-surname conventions, it seems to be: <first name>[<numeric sequence>][of <originating community>][, <primary title>]. A fictional example - Frederick V of Shrimptom, 5th Beadle of Shrimpshire.--Jrm03063 13:09, 29 December 2008 (EST

Fred Bergman 20:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, not all royals have their own Wikipedia article. Consistency should be used so that multiple pages are not created:

• Henry II Plantagenet, King of England (1133-1189)
• Henry II, King of England (1133-1189)
• Henry II of England (1133-1189)
• Henry Plantagenet (1133-1189)

People would create all sort of inconsistant formats. We are not Wikipedia. Wikipedia is inconsistent. We are not multiple GEDCOMs with the same people. Multiple GEDCOMS are inconsistant. We are not a personal genealogy site. Personal genealogy sites are inconsistant. Inconsistancy causes confusion. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 02:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I support with the added comment that many medieval titled families (especially in Germany) never acquired surnames, so I would prefer Henry II, King of England (1133-1189) to a form that pretends that he had a surname. Thurstan 03:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

For a concrete example, naming Rotrud (c837-?) as "Rotrud Carolingian, Countess of Laurenbourg (c837-?)" would seem to me to be a complete anachronism, though I think she should be "Rotrud, Countess of Laurenbourg (c837-?)". Thurstan 03:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well if they do have a surname, we should use it. If they do not have a surname, then we should just leave it out. -AMK152^{(talk • contribs}) 03:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Question what was a surname 1200 years ago? If in doubt, leave it out. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Desirable to have the Wikipedia pagename as a redirect to our version. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest the following principles, in order of application:

1. Name someone by his/her common name. Louis the German is thus Louis the German, not Louis of Germany, or Louis King of Germany, or Louis Carolingian. This rule implies that people are easily found and googled. It also minimises the chance of duplication.
2. Name someone by his/her family. Most noble families had family names by the year 1000.
3. Name someone by his/her principal holding. Often, this coincides with the family name.
4. Name someone by his/her title. I put this almost last, because a title is just a job title. People changed titles during their lifes, or had many titles. While we may think of William the Conqueror as King of England, he thought that Duke of Normandy was the more important title.
5. Name someone by his/her name on Wikipedia. Often this coincides with 1, but disambiguation has led to some pretty strange things.

There is one further thing. I tend to call people in their language that is currently spoken on their territory. Guido di Spoleto and Hermann von Hessen rather than Guy of Spoleto and Herman of Hesse. Rtol 17:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)