Recording name for infant who died unnamed?

Question

Going back in my genealogy, I find children who died in infancy. Some were given names, some weren't. How should I record those with no given names? Often there were multiple unnamed children in a single family. I usually know the gender of the child, but even then there are cases with two unnamed males or such.

• How should I record this to make it clear at first glance (1) this child had no given name, and (2) this is not the same as the other unnamed child (if there is one in that family)?
• Is there a standard convention?

Answer 1

The usual way to record stillborn children is with inherited name only, and identical birth and death dates. The inherited name is derived from the record in the same as is it for other children; if not explicitly stated, it is typically the last name of the father, the last name of the mother, a patronym or a matronym. If the gender is documented, it should be recorded. In the rare cases that a stillborn child has been given a name, you must use it.

You may wish all parents named their stillborn children, but it is not hard to understand that many would rather not do so.

Lack of a given name of is a historical fact you should respect. You should not make up names, use a phrase like "baby", "stillborn", "unnamed" or anything like that as a name, nor use numbers. Your software will "name" and number all children when you create a report, according to the conventions for that report.

Software that does not allow an empty given name field fails as genealogy software. Use of the abbreviation N.N. (Nomen Nescio, Latin: name, I don't know) may seem appropriate, but N.N. should not be used in lieu of a given name. You can use P.N. (Prenom Nescio, Latin: given name, I don't know) as a temporary workaround for the limitation, but the real solution is to upgrade to something better.

In case of stillborn multiples, the children should be entered just as they would be entered if they weren't stillborn; in order of record.

Identically named and unnamed children of the same parents are a fact of genealogy. Their different birth dates, death dates, and the different records these dates are based on, are how you tell them apart from each other.

Answer 2

The question was for unnamed children, but the answer (the way I read it) makes the assumption that that these are stillborn children. It is only a "modern" practice to give names immediately at birth. I have aunts and uncles that went unnamed for weeks. From family letters written by my grandmother to my grandfather, he was working 20 miles from home, so he would only come home once a week or so. Maybe hard to imagine when most people commute that much every day. They debated on what to name the child.

I'm sure everyone has seen census records where children months old were listed by the enumerator as "unnamed," "not named," "no name," etc. Go to FamilySearch for the 1900 census https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1325221

and put in "unnamed" and there are 38,010 results. Put in "not named" and there are 347,109 results. "No name" has 389,371 results. Just on the first page of results for "not named" there was one person over 2 years old who was "not named."

I've seen Bible records where the father listed "daughter" born on a date and "died at 8 days old," etc.

Personally, I wouldn't use Latin abbreviations of N. N. or P. N., as those could (and most likely would) be interpreted by someone as being the known initials for given names (that were not known). I personally put "unnamed daughter" (or son or child) as in the case of the above Bible record I listed, or for church records which burials (but not baptisms) for "son/daughter/child of John Smith was buried on 6 May 1776, age 3 days." Yes, in the latter that's an assumption that the child was not named, but in some cultures a child was not given a name until they were baptized.

Answer 3

This question is related to (but not identical to) How should I distinguish siblings named identically?.

It is wrong to create a fake personal name, or to add annotation like a birth date or ordinal suffix to a personal name. If the child didn't have a personal name then none should be recorded.

However, the label or title field, or whatever your software product uses to represent a person in reports and charts, can and should be used for this purpose. I know of no specific standard or convention for what to put in that field in this situation so it's largely a matter of preference.

Technical Note added later:- A Personal name, or place of birth, or date of birth, etc., are data recorded for specific properties. These should be transportable if you plan to share your data. Special states such as 'none' or 'unknown' are usually represented by meta-data, or the absence of a value. Using a textual substitute such as "UNKNOWN" is locale-dependent (i.e. might not read well to a non-English speaker) and could cause ambiguity in a different language. This doesn't prevent your software displaying "UNKNOWN" for you, as an end-user, but that's different to what is stored in the data itself.

Answer 4

Others have commented about their approach to record entry.

Luke also asked, "Is there a standard convention?"

A good way of familiarizing yourself with standard practices is to read scholarly journals; examples from the United States are The Register, The Quarterly and The Record.

For the purpose of your question, I happened to pull a copy of The Register, v161 (January 2007). Skimming the issue quickly, I found two articles that remarked about unnamed children. In both cases, the given name space was simply "child"; references follow.

Example 1: Deborah Kimball Nowers, "Osmond Trask and his children of Salem and Beverly, Massachusetts," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 161 (Jan 2007): 47-61, p. 59 for the two children, numbered and listed as:

ix. Child, d. 18 Jan 1730-31.

x. Child, d. 7 April 1731.

Both the above entries cite the Vital Records of Beverly; 2:580 and 2:583, respectively.

Register-style Child Lists, from which the entries above were extracted, omit the surname; so generally the given name only appears.

Example 2: This example is perhaps more interesting, given the lifespan information.

R. Andrew Pierce, "Joseph Daggett of Martha's Vineyard, his Native American wife, and their descendants," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 161: 5-21, see p. 19 for the Child List entry:

ii. child, b. by Oct. 1725; d. before 17 July 1747, the date of Edward Cottle's deed described above.

From the description, the existence of the child seems inferred from the will; I didn't further research.

Answer 5

In cases where the infant died unnamed I use simply "Baby Girl" or "Baby Boy" and the surname. If twins I put a number 1 or 2 after the sex. In case of unknown gender I use "Baby". That way I record the child in the tree whether if was stillborn or did not live very long. Sometimes the family had a name planned for the child which they may still use when referring to the infant. While it may not be on the BC or DC it was a family name. I use that too.

Answer 6

I had a similar dilemma some time ago in my own tree. The case I encountered was a set of twins that had died within a couple days of their birth. I had the bright idea that I would name them "Son (1) of Binkele" and "Son (2) of Binkele".

I haven't seen a standard conventional way of correcting the "infant-died at birth", that can separate them and to make it clear at first glance.