When I cleaned up several generations on the Esparaza tree on Family Search to reflect the accurate relationships I was very careful to include the correct mother’s maiden name on each record which was especially important on generations with the same name, like Lope Ruiz Esparza Espinosa and Lope Ruíz de Esparza Diaz. However, the same Family Search user who had deleted the couple relationship mentioned on my previous post changed a number of the names, including some, but not all of the wives by adding long extensions like these:
Lic. Lope Ruíz De Esparza Espinoza Sr. De Esparza de Galar y Zariquiegui
Lic. Pedro Ruíz De Esparza Caparroso Sr. De Esparza de Galar y Zariquiegui - Lope Ruiz Esparza Espinosa’s son Martin Ruíz De Esparza Huici Sr. De Esparza de Galar y Zariquiegui - Lope Ruiz Esparza Espinosa’s father
María de Larrasoaña Sra. Del Palacio de Zariquiegui – One of Martin Ruíz De Esparza Huici’s wives (Not Lope’s mother)
This extended version of the name was obviously taken from court documents like the example below that uses the name in the title with the added description in the Content of the summary, but this isn’t always the case. There are many court actions that only use Lope Ruiz de Esparza in both the title and Content of the court action.
LOPE RUIZ DE ESPARZA contra DOMINGO DE OSCOZ
Content: Lope Ruiz de Esparza, señor de los palacios de Esparza (Galar) y Zariquiegui, vecino de Pamplona, contra Domingo de Oscoz, residente en el barrio de Santa Engracia de Pamplona, sobre retrocesion de la venta de una viña junto al degolladero de Pamplona de Antonio de Espinosa, su primo carnal, por 47 ducados, alegando derecho de tanteo como pariente mas cercano.
My question is whether those of nobility were referred to as Lord or Lady of a domain from birth, or only after the death of the father? It doesn’t make sense to me that three generations of Esparza men who may have been alive at the same time would all be referred to as Lord of Esparza de Galar y Zariquiegui. It seems that, for genealogy purposes, using the mother’s maiden name after the paternal surname distinguishes one generation from another sufficiently. Family Search offers another area called Other Formation/Alternate Name where name variations and additional information can be added.
Anyway, I looked into what Family Search recommended for Name entry and following the guidelines changed the names back to the ones I had originally used with paternal and maternal surnames. I included Source documents that stated ONLY the name without the extended description in the title of court actions, suggested that name variations could be added under Other Formation/Alternate Name, and actually added the extended information in that section. Again, the user changed them all back to the extended names. I’m not to get into a dueling match with this user and make any more changes. Meanwhile, I’m going to a Family Search seminar in June that deals with how to maintain accuracy in trees and deal with those who are making it difficult, so I will bring up my issues then.
Thanks for any insight that can be offered here about title and name traditions in Spain during the Middle Ages and in genealogy, in general.