"Died Young" - grammatically incorrect and therefore intellectually offensive.

... but what about those cases where you don't know that person was an infant or not? And when do they change from being an infant to a child, or from a child to a youth (one which is likely still to young to be a parent)?

... and what if you don't know the gender? (there are plenty of those)

In many cases, some variation of "died young" is used to indicate "this person died before they were likely to be married, so don't join them with a spouse".

Many prefer the simple "Died Young" to the "Died without Issue" that is often found ... that latter says nothing about whether that person was ever married or not, but the former implies they did not (likely) have a partner.

Another way to look at it might be "<this profile name> Died Young" as the grammatically correct way of 'reading' the profile.

Other variations of "Died Young" are feasible, and having examples in the media library of this project would give people choices to select from. In general, few would object to a more specific 'placard'.

I would simply encourage consistency in a particular area of the Tree for how any of these 'placards' are used -- and that convention can be decided by the active managers of profiles in that area.

I like to have the details in the profile itself. I use the Died Young graphic only when I really need to indicate that "something happened" so this person isn't going to be your ancestor and shouldn't be merged with other siblings of the same name who did grow up and marry.

As with everything on Geni, though, it's all a question of what people will use. If someone makes a series of more specific graphics they could become wildly popular.

I agree. Perfect, Justin.

John Smith I have added some gender indicated images - an improvement?

I use the died young images I created (a male image (blue flowers) and a female image (pink flowers) to prevent incorrect merges taking place. I always end up having to go and sort out incorrect merges where 2 siblings with the same name were merged. Placing these images with the profiles have helped in lowering the number of incorrect merges. I could add these 2 images to the project if you want me to.

Good idea Lea!

Will do!

Hi June
I have added the 2 icons to the project album, but I don't know how to add it to the text of the project.

I will do that! Thanks Lea

Private User I have done that - hel;p with adding images can be found at [http://www.geni.com/projects/index/8404 '''Geni Wikitext, Unicode and images'''] which gives a great deal of assistance.

At the top of this project we have the following -

©

© 1909 : Jan Pieter VETH ‧ 1864-1925 ‧ kunst-schilder ‧ & ‧ © year : Tom HAARTSEN ‧ w:Ouderkerk a/d Amstel-NLD ‧ fotograaf ‧ || ‧ Coll.ABN‧AMRO ‧ Hist.Archief A'dam ‧ eigendom onbekend ‧ provenance onbekend ‧ & ‧ © portret : Erven Nalatenschap: Benjamin Willem BLIJDENSTEIN ‧ 1839-1914 ‧ & ‧ © beeld : Erven Nalatenschap: schilder + fotograaf ‧ tot ZEVENTIG jaren NA hun verscheiden !!!! - in Nederland althans ! - wordt dus maar nooit uitgever :-) BRON: http://www.neha.nl/leaders/
‧

Ingewikkeld? Gelukkig mag je de KRAAG van zijn JASJE weer wel copieren dus Dutch Designers wouldn't worry.....
©

Is this necessary/meaningful etc. etc.???

I'm not sure if it is necessary or meaningful. It makes no sense to me.

This does not take into account those children whose gender is not known, either no indication or with a name that is unusal and does not fit either category..

I think there are much bigger problems to worry about and this discussion is a waste of time.

Most people use some sort of identifier to show that a child was born and did not live to marry and have children; primarily as a result of families re-using names in the event of the death of a child..

I have added some green, genderless images for those who want them.

It may be a waste of time to you Fay but of interest and usefulness to some people! There are users who are looking for guidance regarding images that they can use instead of the default profile!

More information about a person who "died without issue" can usually be easily seen in the overview on a profile offering explanation/time scale etc.

I had a very interesting message from a user about this topic. It was such an interesting and thoughtful message that I'm very tempted to copy and paste, but I don't think I ought to do that.

So here are two key points:

1. Some users are offended that the text is English.

I think this is a good point. While it's true that anyone can create and use their own version, our English-speaking users might want to be sensitive to the problem of using English-language graphics for profiles outside English-speaking areas.

2. Some users might object to the more artistic pictures, such as "small angels, naked babies at sleep or things like that as a symbol for dead young persons. If a 14-year old boy died it's not representative with a baby-picture for instance."

Good point. Although it's a question of taste and style, I think some users would balk at representing an older child by an image of a baby. And personally I would be very reluctant to use a picture of an angel because it might be offensive to some living family members.

There was much more, but these are the two points that stood out for me.

One is because we are 'relatives' the other is because we 'collaborate'.

I put a generic photo on the profiles because family's re-used names and I got sick of detaching wives and children from people who could not possible have been spouse or parent.

I did ask not to 'follow' this discussion.

One is because we are 'relatives' the other is because we 'collaborate'.

I put a generic photo on the profiles because family's re-used names and I got sick of detaching wives and children from people who could not possible have been spouse or parent.

I did ask not to 'follow' this discussion.

Fay, you are probably Following the project so you automatically Follow every new discussion until you Unfollow.

Personally, I'm glad to have your perspective. No user should be attacked for presenting a contrary point of view, in my opinion.

This isn't a topic that would have been near the top of my list, but it's clearly important to other users.

Back on topic: in my secret heart of hearts what I really hope is that some user or users will create a set of uniform graphics with variations. I fantasize that Geni will hire a graphic artist, but I think they have other things to think about.

In my opinion, the best graphics we have are for the Mormon Pioneer projects. Professional. Restrained. Tasteful. I wish I knew who designed those. I'd try to draft them to do more.

Years ago I drafted a friend to translate the phrases "died young" in multiple languages & genders & to float within a simple, tasteful frame. There was no interest when samples offered so project dropped.

Erica! Really!? That sounds wonderful. I don't remember that. Probably just too many things to think about. Do you have any interest in picking up the project again?

None. Sorry! It wasn't worth the bickering.

It might be good to do a rough survey of the term "died young" and see how commonly it is used in genealogical circles. I'll post a few examples and observations as I find them.

I totally understand that the main focus of this particular discussion only relates to the "died young" placard. I hope that my broadening of the discussion to the use of "died young" as descriptive text by geni, genealogical societies, books or web sites is not viewed as an unwelcome side discussion that dilutes the focus of the main placard discussion which I am finding interesting.

My observation is that the text "died young" is widely used. I make no judgement on if it is correctly used or if there is a better term to use as a replacement.

Here's a quick survey of some of the uses of "died young" that I found doing internet searches:

In Ancestry.com their description page for the database "American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI)" includes the phrase: "...If a child died young, or if a man or woman died unmarried or left no children, these facts are stated using these respective abbreviations: d.y. or d.inf., d.unm., or no ch. ..."

A Google site search for the term "died young" on geni returns numerous results (18,400 hits)

"died young" site:geni.com

A Google site search for the term "died young" on ancestry.com returns numerous results (1,230,000 hits)

"died young" site:ancestry.com

I think many of the ancestry hits are from rootsweb posts.

And finally "The New England Historical and Genealogical Register" volume 3-4; published in 1849 that I examined on Google books contains the phrase "died young" 27 times.

I was interested in the last result as it shows that the text "died young" has been in use for some time.

I'll be following the rest of this discussion with interest.

--Randy S.

Randy - you are the artist behind the Mormon Pioneer graphics, aren't you?

In looking at the secondary sources used by Rootsweb, in Colonial America, it seems the phrase (originating from Burke's & other Peerage studies, perhaps was

d.v.p., d.y.? (died without issue, did he die young?)

I'm going to link the "acronyms used in genealogy" project.

http://www.geni.com/projects/Abbreviations-Acronyms-for-Genealogy-T...

And now also from the "related projects" menu on the side

See what I mean? )

And it's actually not that difficult, of course, to add the translation to a neutral frame better than the "dirty yellow."

BUT - why do so when there has been no interest from those of other languages besides English in using it?

I do agree to Fay's opinion "I think there are much bigger problems to worry about and this discussion is a waste of time." But not completaly : ).

As there now has become a "gender"-question to I'd like to add:

In each data-box for each profile one chose between "Male", "Female" or "Unknown". Sometime a child dies during the birth and maybe no name is given. In Sweden nowadays we give names after the wish of the parents even if the child has no life at birth. The names of a person mostly tell the sex of the person as well. In most indo-german languages we also can hear on the intonation on the name if it's a boys or a girls name. (Try to intonate Erica in the same way as Justin and the opposite! It's fun. Or give Justins a Pink box and Erica a Blue box in the Tree.)

Sometimes it's impossible to decide sex of the child at birth. We do have example list with "double"-names the parents can chose for these children. Nowadays! Many of these children did not survive in older days because the nature shaped life in other forms than God have told = it was cultural impossible to be a "neither". (In some cultures these children instead of becoming "nothing" they was shaped into Gods.) On Geni we can chose "Unkown" = green boxes in the Tree. That ought to be understood as I/We don't know!

So at Geni we have the possibility to immideately when we see a profile what sex and if the child grow up and became an adult person. Not even becoming an adult person means a person got married and had children. But at least there was a chance to get married and get children if grown up. But this is not the only interesting thing about a person! Thats not a persons life. If it was not women who did get married very young and gave borth to many children and then died at the tenth labour and at 28 years of age. I would call her a "young woman who died in complications of labour" or "a young mother". We must remember that in big parts of the world today this is still the dominating tradition and a "normal" female life! In Sweden all the newpapers and media in the country tells about if a fertile woman dies at labour today! That's head news!! But 100-years ago a 20 year old pharamist wife died when her newborn daughter was about 2-3 weeks. The father then sent for a cousin of the wife and she took care of the little girl and married the man and gave birth to 5- 6 children more. Maybe ten. We can not be sure since at the time one did not mention all the children who died/was lost. And we have to be clear that very often the surviving girls was not always mentioned among the "children". If dead at childhood we have to be clear of the fathers may not at all have mentioned them.

To conclued: We do have possibilties to, from the short statement "Died young" clear many problems with merges and sort out many geneaological problems too.
We have the possibility to sort out sex when and if necessary. There will be a problem in the future if two persons with unknow sex gets a child with unknown sex, or if two men or two women gets children together.

That's a question for the future Geni to solve and I have personally decided to not get involved with the data-computer-problems rising from persons changing sex in the papers/documents but only halfway physological changed sex. (We do have a "new" man in the documents who has kept some of his female internal organs and who has given birth together with his wife/or husband as he was transsexual and homosexual or something. At least he has survived childhood, become adult and a parent (father or mother?).

The life is to complicated to not identify the "bigger problems" with Geni than about this "Died young"-sign.

Burke's Peerage
d - died
das - died in active service
decd - deceased
dsp - decessit sine prole - died without issue
dspl - decessit sine prole legitima - died withoiut legitimate issue
dspm - decessit sine prole mascula - died without male issue
dspml - decessit sine prole mascula legitima - died without legitimate male issue
dspms - decessit sine prole mascula superstite - died without surviving male issue
dsps - decessit sine prole supersite - died without surviving issue
d unm - died unmarried
dvm - decessit vita matris - died in the lifetime of the mother
dvm - decessit vita patris - died in the lifetime of the father
sp - sine prole - without issue

Regarding the colour linking/coding - this is present on the tree view but not on the profile view where the colour is useful. We have used colour coded images for the 1820 settlers of South Africa extensively http://www.geni.com/projects/1820-British-Settlers-in-South-Africa/...

Incidentally Lea is a graphic designer!!

sorry - dvp decessit vita patris - died in the lifetime of the father

I hadn't thought about the coloring point in profile view. Of course there's the default silhouette to indicate gender but that is over riden by an uploaded image.

OK now I see the point. Good one, June.

Lea - I love your work. I cannot use it unfortunately in my tree as I am Jewish.