Talk:Frederick Olmsted Jr.

Frederick Law Olmsted relationship

I was not sure how to refer to the relationship and I don't know that we have a title for this type of relationship in English. I referred to it as "He was a great-nephew of landscape architect that designed New York City's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted" in the article. Basically Frederick Law Olmsted adopted his nephews (becoming their stepfather and uncle), one of these nephews was Frederick E. Olmsted Jr.'s father. Feel free to correct this if you are able. Thanks Jooojay (talk) 18:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

References

Did a bit of genealogical research and found that FLO was the half-brother of FEO Jr.'s grandfather, as their father married twice. So, I believe the previously cited source which calls FEO Jr. the great-nephew of FLO was correct. I have corrected the text to that. Another source is not needed.Rublamb (talk) 03:10, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Removal of cited

Adding a note here because there appears to be a history of vandalism to this article by editors claiming to be relatives of the article subject (COI editors). Jooojay (talk) 06:26, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Request to remove the middle name

Hi, I've received a request to fix the name of the subject of this article on my talk page. They say that the subject had no middle name. Looking at the references present on the article, I could get only one hit to the word "Erskine", and that referred to the subject's father, Frederick E. Olmsted. If anyone can find a reference to show that the son also had the same middle name, then ok. Otherwise, we should remove the middle name from the article and move to the page to the right location. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 08:24, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Source #1 documents the middle name. Also, he was a jr., meaning he had the same name as his father. Rublamb (talk) 09:16, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@MPGuy2824: I have been through the Census and official records. His birth records were created later, so they are not helpful. The 1920 Census indicates that there is a middle name but has the initial "X" which probably got transcribed incorrectly. In the 1930 and the 1940 Census, he is not listed with an initial. Also, no initial with society security and draft registration. So, if he had a middle name (which I believe he did at birth, before the divorce of his parents), he was not using it legally as an adult. Nor did he appear to use the suffix "Jr." on legal records. However, he was only 14 or 15 when his father died in 1925, so he did not need to use Jr. to differentiate himself from his father. Based on my history and genealogy work, someone could change their birth name at will in the early 20th century, locking into a legal name only after getting a social security number.

Since we use the common name for Wikipedia articles and assuming that the person who contacted you is a family member, it looks like the correct name for the article is "Frederick Olmsted (artist), with either Frederick Erskin Olmsted Jr. or Frederick Olmsted Jr. in the lede. It also looks like he went by Fred and Ric, so maybe the article should be Fred Olmsted or Rick Olmsted if he used one of those as an artist. However, let me do some more digging before moving the article as its existing name makes a better differentiation from his contemporary and cousin, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who did WPA landscape projects. Many "reliable" sources about Olmsted's murals refer to him as Frederick Law Olmsted, making this even muddier. With that in mind, what do you think the new name should be? Rublamb (talk) 15:51, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

This National Register Nomination Form for Coit Tower calls him Frederick Erskin Olmsted Jr. as the artist of a work. Elsewhere in the nomination form, he is called Fred Olmsted. He is also called Fred in the various newspaper articles (newly added to the article) from his art period in California. However, the scholarly articles were published under the name Frederick Olmsted. Rublamb (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@C.Dubois.Olmstead: Rublamb has made a good case for leaving the name as it is. WP:NAMECHANGES seems to be a relevant policy. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:16, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Rublamb, I think you've made your case. It is quite confusing and I've created a disambiguation page. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:23, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

MPGuy2824: This disabig was needed--I almost made one myself yesterday. Regardless of the two sources I found and the 1920 Census, he clearly used the name Frederick Olmsted. According to WP:COMMONNAME, we should title the article based on the name that is commonly used: Frederick Olmsted. The issue becomes how to differentiate him from his more famous cousins. The good news is that they were always publically called Frederick Law Olmsted or Frederick L. Olmsted. Simimarly, his father was also publically referred to with a middle name or initial. (I did find another Frederick/Fred Olmsted born in the same year and city. Thank goodness he was not famous!). Even so, I think naming this article Frederick Olmsted would cause confusion and a qualifier is needed. The challenge is that he had two completely unrelated careers. However, all significant coverage is about his work as an artist, not his experimentation with animals and medical equipment. Thus, we can correclty rename this article Frederick Olmsted (artist). That is my recommendatin. Rublamb (talk) 16:02, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Lacking any other comments, I have moved the article to Frederick Olmsted Jr. and have updated any related pages. This is consistent with the original move request from a family member. Rublamb (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)