William "Billy" Carter - Middle name “Billy”

Billy is not intended to be the "middle name". The person just wanted to indicate that William was often called "Billy" (since Bill and Billy are nicknames of William).

That is why I like to put nicknames in the "As Known As" data field. and present the name in "Display Name" in the data field.

I wish folks in Geni understand that cultures' (i.e. Irish) traditions refer to people by their middle names (and not first names). Perhaps, it is because the lineage is typically the same for each generation: such as "William Patrick Burke" and "William James Burke" and "William John Burke" so the people would be addressed as Patrick, James and John. It helps identify their family groupings.

Also, I wish folks on Geni could understand the two data fields "Last Name" and "Birth surname" is the same - there are two data fields because women historically changed their names. This is why geneology get to be difficult because women are referred to their husband's family. and thus their birth family get lost and missing. I like this feature because it helps be know which female had married into the same last name., spotting possbile inbreeding..

... also, people may forget that women remarry several times. So, naturally, there will be multiple branches of one person. I like to put the original birth last name in the woman's profile in the "Birth surname" datafield, and put the final marriage name in the "Last Name" data field. All other last names will then go under "As Known As" as a list. Then, in the "Display Name" I would address the name by listing the long list of other married names.

For instance, hypothetical situation: Elizabeth Jane Smith Johnson (Main) where the second marriage was Johnson, first marriage was Smith and birth name growing up was Main, with the nick name Bessie, would be displayed in "Display Name" as: Bessie J. Smith-Johnson (Main), while "Bessie Smith" is also indicated in "As Known As" data field.

Remember, "As Known As" is on the profile at the right-hand column, with the list of names.

Get it?