Ancestry tree - name changes

[McGroger]

Hi, Lizzie

Either:
In the Tree view, click on the person in your tree.
Then in the pop-up that appears, select Quick Edit.
Or:
In the Profile view, click on Edit.

In the Edit box that pops up for either of the above, type his alternative name in the Suffix box. Then click Save. It is best practice to type his alternative name in full. For example many of my family used alternative names when their own was banned. For John McGregor I input the whole of this, including brackets: (aka John Graeme). His name shows in his profile as John McGregor (aka John Graeme) and a search of either name will find him.

Hope this helps.

Peter

[LizzieL]

Thank you, that's one method I haven't tried. I'll give it a go!

[jc26red]

Yes Peter, that’s how I have done it. I have also had success with just adding the additional name in brackets after the known name.  Searches will bring up possibles for both names.

[Rosinish]

Not quite sure if my way of doing works or not, here's my example...

I have Sarah Cullen born illegitimate with those names but she used the name Sarah Gunn (Gunn being her father's surname not on BC) i.e. I have her in my tree as...

Sarah Gunn / Cullen

The thing with ancestry is, if you add their records to your 'person' this is what gives the 'hint' scenario to others i.e. should be picked up by anyone who has that person on their tree with either name?

You could use the 'Suffix' option & type in '(Name Change)'

Annie

[andrewalston]

It's a shame that quite a bit of genealogy software fails to deal with name changes and name variants. Ancestry seem to believe that a different name must always be a temporary aberration. In their world, no women adopt a fresh surname on marriage, for example. Come to think of it, my granny had similar thinking. The woman who had been her bridesmaid was always "Doris Woods", ignoring the 50+ years she had been married to Joe Holmes.

I have found the surname of my paternal ggg gf written in 8 different ways, none of which matches mine. Ancestry can't cope with this. Only one of the 8 can be located in a search. Even though some of the others appear in their records, it wouldn't offer them as a likely match unless that particular variant was ticked as "preferred".

Things are much easier in the software I use offline. Each of those variant spellings is recorded, with dates against them. I can find him by looking under any of those names. As I enter a marriage, it offers to set up a Married Name too, with the same date.