I’m stuck on adding details on some family members and I hope someone will shed a light on how to properly add this info to Gramps.
Case #1:
– a female had a first name Ann, a middle name Marie (received at Baptism and present in official documents alongside the first name), a religious name Veronica (received at Confirmation, which was rarely used by this person and was not present in any documents, except church’s);
– in the same time she had a maiden name XX, after the first marriage she took husband’s name YY, after the second marriage she took the second’s husband name alongside the first (YY-ZZ), and after some time she removed the first husband’s name (only ZZ remained).
Case #2:
– a male had a middle name received at Baptims which was used alongside the first name (in all official documents etc.)
– the other male had a middle name received at Baptims which was used very rarely (and never in any official documents except the church’s)
In other apps or webservices (like MyHeritage) there are more fields that help in such situations (like ‘Religious name’ field), but I can’t find any such fields in Gramps.
The Person Editor shows most of the fields for the Preferred name. (Since some fields are not used very often, the dialog doesn’t show the multiple surnames, Group as, override Sort as, Display as, Date range, Family nickname.) Aside from the Multiple Surnames, you’ll need to use the Name Editor dialog to access those fields.
You can set up Alternative Names in the Names tab of the Edit Person dialog for the different types (Birth, Married, AKA, a custom type) of Names a person uses over their lifetime.
In Gramps, you can give each person multiple Name records. The list of names is listed and added in the person’s Names tab. Typically, the first entry will be the Birth Name and used in the Preferred Name slot. You can add other names such as a name given at Baptism or Confirmation. You can specify a woman’s married name. Or a professional name. You the user can set any of the names into the Preferred Name slot. In most cases, the Preferred Name will be the name used in reports, etc.
When adding a new name, you will be given an advanced name edit window. You can access this window for the preferred name by either through the Names tab list or it’s edit icon found just after the Suffix field.
The edit window allows for dates, citations and notes to be added to the name record. In the name’s general tab, you can override the default display name set in Preferences or give the name a different sort from the default display option.
The Call field is not always understood. It is designed to be one of the Given names. If a person used a middle name as their basic name, you can enter that in the Call field. This is helpful if you set up a Display Name option to use Common Surname instead of Given Surname. The Common will display the Call entry if it is filled in. If not Call, it will use the Nickname if filled in, and as a last resort just the first of the Given names.
In the advanced name edit window, there is a Family Nick Name option. This applies to a family’s surname. French Canadians use it like “Francoeur dit Franklin” where Franklin is the Family Nick Name. These family nick names are passed down through generations.
The biggest discission will be: Of the multiple name records for a person, which one will be slotted into the Preferred Name slot.
In the advanced Name Edit window there is the Group As field, It is made active by checking the Override box. Using this option can set the Group As option for just the one record, or set the option for all records with the same surname.
This allows the user to group various spellings the same surname together. I always use Clark and Clarke as a good example.
The way I use it I set the Group As for all surnames Clark to “Clark (Clarke)”. I also set all surnames Clarke to “Clark (Clarke)”. To make the list really useful, I set my Name Display to Given Surname, Suffix. This brings John Clark and John Clarke together in the Grouped people list.
Note: Setting the Group As option does NOT alter a person’s name record. It just bring different spellings of the same surname together in sorted lists.
