I am new to gramps so I apologize if this is really basic.
How do I model that a person or a place have multiple names?
For example my family emigrated from one country to another. The family name is the same however the new generation spell it with the new language and the old generation and historical documents use the original language.
To complicate things, one of the family members had a mistake made in the passport and he was flowing with it since then (50 years) so while his official family name is different, he and his children do belong to the original family.
So how do I mark that this is in fact the same family name in the context of my tree?
Another example, I communicate on 3 languages and use 3 versions of my given name adapted for each language. They are similar but they sound differently. Do I really have to pick only one?
Final example, some family members were born in a town in the Soviet Union and this town later changed its name. So they were born in town X but had an event in town Y, but this is the same town. How do I mark it?
Every person can have multiple names. The Person window show a Names tab. This is where you can record alternate names with citations pointing to the “evidences”. Every alternate name can have its own set of given name (recording “official” spelling mistakes) and its own chain of family name(s). For convenience, you can designate one of these names as the primary one. The person will then be listed by this name. But searching for a person by name nevertheless queries all recorded names.
You want to identify that, despite the name variants, they all belong to the same ancestry or onomastic group, so that they appear together in lists. You have a Group As field in the alternate name dialog. Enter there the preferred name or abbreviation. This key is not necessarily related to the real name. For example in my case, I use “Gerlier, Jerlier or Jarlier” to group all variations, but the text is completely arbitrary. I could as well have “Gerlier group, Latin origin”. This can be used to disambiguate similar looking but totally estranged names like “Berger (Latin)” and “Berger (German)” while keeping simply “Berger” in the name fields.
Places also have alternate names. In addition, you can tell during which period of time the name was valid (and in which language). And places can also be “enclosed by” (province, country, …). This relationship is also time-stamped and this records the political changes during History.
