Most of the women in our family trees changed their name at some point or another. That can present an organizational conundrum in the files we keep for them. I thought I’d let you know how I handle it in my digital filing system. As always, I’m not telling you the right way to do anything. I just want to share how I do it, because it’s worked well for me.
In a nutshell, I file women under their married surname. As I describe in the post How I Process a Downloaded Document, on my hard drive I have surname folders for each of the surnames in my family and within each folder I have folders for individual people. In those people folders are the individuals containing source documents. (I have a separate Collateral folder within which the surname folders for collateral relatives are filed.)
Here’s how I name women’s folders:
Last Name (Birth Name), First Name (YOB-YOD). So the folder for one of my second great grandmother’s folder is called Garlock (Ten Eyck), Anna (1832-1910). It resides in the Garlock Surname folder, as shown in the screenshot above.
If I find a relative before she’s married, I’ll use her birth surname for filing purposes. But once I’ve found marriage documents, I’ll rename and move her folder to her married surname.
It seems pretty straight forward, but of course, things like multiple marriages can make it more complicated. For my direct-line ancestors, it’s easy. I use the surname associated with the spouse who is my direct line. (If it’s a second or later marriage, I don’t typically use the first married name in the folder name, I just use the birth name.)
But for collateral relatives, where there isn’t necessarily a married name that is more relevant to me than the other married names, I typically just use the first married surname that I find and leave it like that. Sometimes I make exceptions, especially for women who were married multiple times and for whom I have trouble keeping track of their various married names. For example, Leonora Adams, the daughter of my much-researched second great grandfather George Washington Adams, was married four times. I file her within the Adams Collateral folder using the folder name “Adams, Leonora (Lochry Stevens Good Ward), 1877-1962.”
Again, I’m not suggesting this is the best way to do it, but it works for me. I pretty much developed my system as I went along. And, as in almost all things, I allow myself to be imperfect about it. That means that there may be inconsistencies in my folder structure. But I have enough of a solid infrastructure that the inconsistencies don’t bother me.
Writing this makes me want to go through my folders–particularly for the collateral relatives–and perhaps correct any inconsistencies. But I’m comfortable leaving them as is until I get around to doing that.
I’m curious: How do you handle the name changes of women among your files? And are there any situations I didn’t cover here that you’re curious about? Feel free to ask in the comments.
I find it easier to record female ancestors with their surname at birth for an individual record. That is certainly how I would display them in a tree as well.
In general I file things by family group. So a female ancestor might have documents filed under her parental family until marriage and then with her married family (or families) until her death, divorce or remarriage. The family group is filed under the father/husband’s surname.
Thanks for your comment, Julie! In my family tree, all the females are displayed with their birth name. I appreciate your explaining how you file by family group!
Hi Janine,
I make files for all my families, both direct and collateral, and ALL women are filed under their maiden surnames in both my digital and paper files.
I may see things a bit differently than most researches, as my direct maternal line is all girls until this newest 8th generation (my first born great grandchild was a girl, then for the first time since my great-great grandmother, three boys were born this generation).
The females in the families were most important as the spouses usually either left or died early! Most of the stories I heard centered on the women and I learned early women could do anything! I was very fortunate, I feel. Also, I don’t seem to have a problem finding the women – wives and daughters – for my families.
Diana, how interesting that your direct maternal line is full of females! I love your comment because it demonstrates so well how one’s individual situation (and way of thinking) dictates what is the best way for them to organize.
I saw somewhere to put the female in a folder under the maiden name until she married and then make a second folder for marriage photos and info under that name. Using your example, it would be:
Garlock (married Ten Eyck), Anna (1832-1910) in the Garlock folder.
Ten Eyck (maiden Garlock), Ann (1832-1910) in the Ten Eyck folder.
I can see either way working as long as there’s consistency.
Thanks for your comment, Connie. This is great example of picking a system that works for you. To me, I think I would find that system overly complicated. But to others it might make perfect sense!
I find my female ancestors particularly interesting, possibly because I can relate to them more. I am currently writing about my female line, covering 10 women from my 6xgreat-grandmother to my daughter.
All my female relatives (direct and collateral) are filed using the same naming standard as your Leonora Adams example, except I use brackets [married name-married name]. I found that it is much easier to track the digital files with my genealogy software program by using their birth name.
Thanks for sharing your approach, Danni! I should have mentioned that I use birth names in my genealogy software and I leave the surname blank if I don’t know the surname. In my digital files, having the husband and wife in the same folder seems important to me. But I love knowing how you do it.
I use the birth name when I know it. In a way, it’s a political statement for me. Women have been erased from history constantly; I’m not going to do it.
I get that, Terry! I didn’t change my name when I got married 30 years ago (I’m still married) so your statement resonates with me. Thanks for sharing.
I file all my female ancestors under their maiden names, but cross reference with married names where they married and took their husbands name. This is in part because on my maternal side I have Scandinavian ancestry and traditionally in some parts of Scandinavia women kept their birth names, even after marriage, so it seems right to do that with my research.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing, Missy!
Thanks! The librarian in me, likes that hierarchy. I think with multiple married names, I might stick in a “see also” in some cases, but not having come across any yet, maybe I wouldn’t!
Thanks, Janet. It always pleases me when librarians like how I do something. 🙂
I file by birth name in family group folders (digital). I recently found an ancestor’s obituary where she was only listed as Mrs. Bob Smith. Her husband and children were listed by name, but her name and her parents and siblings names were omitted! Outside her role of mother and wife, this woman had no identity to her family, so sad. Don’t you wish women kept their surnames down thru the generations like the men? Our work would be so much easier.
I have seen a lot of those obituaries. I find it very sad too.
I’m another using family groups because I like having parents and siblings in one folder and I use Ahnentafel numbers to make it easy to see how groups are related. Documents for my current focus (4th great grandparents) go in folder: 64 Coan Abraham 65 Christian Hinckley. All the documents for their children will stay in the subfolders, eg. 1 Joanna 1760_by1839 m Francis Small except for the child who will be my direct line ancestor. In this case he got folder 32 Coan Elisha Davis 33 Mary Atkins. Pre-marriage documents for the direct lines stay with parents. And LOL my “can’t concentrate days I do create folders like 78 Knight Unknown 79 Wife Unknown.
Thanks for sharing, Roberta! It’s so interesting to hear how people are handling female ancestors.
I file the women by their maiden names. They are filed in a folder with their parents and a copy is made into a folder with their husbands.
What I also need to figure out is how to name and file the documents for those of us that are NPE. I can’t decide whether to go by the legal name I was raised with or who I am genetically. Or both, and then those in my position would be in three separate folders. Your thoughts?
That’s an interesting question and one I haven’t considered before. My gut tells me to use the name the person used but add them in the tree as progeny of their birth parents. But again, that’s my answer without having experienced a Non-Paternal Event in my tree (yet) and without having pondered it before.
Thank you, Janine. I wish that I had never experienced it, but that is what I have been dealt. I hope no one in your family ever gets hit with this kind of news.
I have my biological father and his ancestors in my tree, and also have my Daddy (the one who raised me and whose name I grew up with) in my tree as my mother’s husband. I will use the name I was born with in the file names.
Thank you. Have a blessed day. 🙂
Thank you for sharing, Suzanne. It sounds like it’s come up with a solution that will work for you! For my own curiosity, when you say the name you were born with, do you mean your Daddy’s surname? I’m just interested in your solution and want to make sure I understand it.
Correct, Daddy’s surname(Gunter) is my birth surname. He thought that I was his child. His name is on my birth certificate and he raised me as his own with his name. I didn’t find out that I wasn’t biologically his until 8 years after his death.
So, for example, my bridal portrait scan would be titled: Gunter_Suzanne_Bridal_1984_1.
That final “1” is because I have multiple bridal portraits scanned into the computer. I would file them in both my parents’ folder and my husband’s folder.
I thought that was the case from your comment, but I just wanted to make sure I understood. I really appreciate your sharing your information. I can imagine that learning this type of news is very challenging for anyone and to add a genealogy-organizing component to it as a genealogist makes it all the more challenging. I think your system sounds excellent.
You’re welcome, and thank you, too. This whole ordeal has been a challenge. It nearly did me in. I came near to ending it all, but Heavenly Father saved me from that. It has been about 2 years since “Revelation Day” and I can now talk about it without puddles of tears(most of the time!).
In regards to my tree, I have to also consider the feelings of my children(all adults now), and they feel the same way I do. My Daddy will always be their Papa and they want him to stay in the tree. Forty years of my life has gone into researching that family and I want it to stay there, too.
I need to get all of this information organized and in usable/understandable form for them. It is a bit all over the place right now between several somewhat organized hard drives. Thanks to multiple backups, I have multiple copies of things to verify before I delete anything. At some point completely different documents/records got saved with the same file names, but in different folders. OY!
I look forward to learning more from you in this regard. Getting it under control is going to take a while. 🙂
It sounds like you have an organizational challenge ahead of you, but that is doable and will be satisfying. It’s really helpful that you know it’s important to you to do the work. Let’s hear it for lots of backups, even there’s a bit of a mess as a result.
I’m glad that you have been able to get through your ordeal with clarity. Your conclusions sound spot-on to me.
Thank you, Janine. Have a blessed day.
I have a very blended family and I am having trouble wrapping my head around a good filing system for ancestors with multiple spouses both with and without children. I started by filing by Family Unit (children with their parents until marriage).
Right now, my filing system looks like:
1. SURNAME – Folder
2. (Husband) SURNAME Given YOB-YOD & (Wife) Given (Maiden) YOB-YOD – Folder
3. SURNAME Given (Maiden) YOB – Document Name/Type
Do I create a new surname folder for the 2nd and 3rd husbands and keep documents for the time period they were married in their respective folders? Or do I put the 2nd and 3rd husband in the 1st husband’s folder to keep everything for my ancestor after her first marriage in one place? Or is there a better way that I am not thinking of? I’m having a hard time decided what to do because I’m just starting out and there may be some complication of filing one way or the other that I have not considered.
Keeping them all under the first husband seems easiest to me. But then I wonder how that will affect ancestors who have multiple spouses and children with different spouses.
Any insight would be appreciated.