Talk:Mozela

DAFN
Mozela/Mozella is not in the DAFN, either in the archive.org version that's linked or on Google Books. Are you looking at something else? —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 10:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I use to check the link to Ancestry.com and be content with that. Would that mean this website uses additional sources? Then maybe the template should be renamed and a new version, without the link to Ancestry.com, used only for entries actually found in the book? Thank you for the quotations of the given name! - Olybrius (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe I shouldve listed a formal RFV for the surname while the original RFV was still live. I can see this being a very rare surname at best .... and since we apparently treat surnames as ordinary words, it needs the standard three citations (not just birth certificates etc) to hold up as a separate entry. But there could be hundreds of other surnames like this in our dictionary, so perhaps focusing on just one isn't the right way to make  things better. — Soap — 07:22, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2022–February 2023
Female given name? Equinox ◑ 13:18, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

RFV Failed (and for the alternative form ) Ioaxxere (talk) 04:21, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * You fail ;) https://www.myheritage.com/research?formId=master&formMode=1&exactSearch=&action=query&p=1&qname=Name+fn.Mozela
 * And likewise for Mozella: https://www.myheritage.com/research?formId=master&formMode=1&exactSearch=&action=query&p=1&qname=Name+fn.Mozella Olybrius (talk) 09:11, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * There's also Mozila/Mozilla and even Mozarella, Equinox will be pleased! - Olybrius (talk) 09:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * actually, I am very happy that my fails are getting people to take another look at old RFVs. Ioaxxere (talk) 17:43, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Quite a few hits on GBooks for the Mozella form. What's the etymology? Is it just from the Polish form of Moselle? --Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:42, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Cited the given name. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 10:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

It looks like we got it, but i want to point out that ancestry research sites are unreliable, e.g. I can easily find people supposedly named Qqqqq because presumably whoever was filling out their family tree just didnt know someone's name. And it's easy to imagine someone might have a vague idea what their ancestor's name was, but not how to spell it. Even the passenger list documents to Ellis Island, birth certificates, and death certificates collected online can all contain errors, sometimes deliberately. For example ancestry.org seems to have a floor of 642 records no matter how ridiculous of a surname I type, as shown here with Pumperumpus and Parapropalaehoplophorus (scroll down if it doesnt go to the part with three images). Why do they both turn up exactly 642 records? I bet it's because it's an oddly precise number that looks legitimate enough that most people won't question it. For these reasons, I recommend sticking to traditional sources the next time we need to verify a given name or surname. — Soap — 22:34, 11 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah, websites like ancestry.com will often generate boilerplate for anything because they want people who happen to be researching any given surname to buy their services. ancestry.com does provide DAFN excerpts where available, which I guess is why the template links to it, but it will state this explicitly when it does (compare Lucas, with a DAFN excerpt, vs. random keyboard mashing and Mozela). The numbers for records found in the sidebar further up the page also seem to be more accurate (compare the last two). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 22:52, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Im very skeptical of the surname now. It does seem to be the Polish name for the French river Moselle, so it's not surprising that it's turned up as a given name here and there, and maybe not just in Poland.   But to believe it's a surname, going by the sources we have linked to,  we'd have to believe the name originated in Poland but is today essentially confined to Brazil, and that it's just a coincidence that some of the birth records show that the people were born with the name Mazela.  I talked above about deliberate inflation of statistics and of people not knowing their ancestors' given names, but I overlooked another source of  error .... people can simply misread others' names, especially in the era when nearly all such documents were handwritten.  With the Forebears site saying that as of 2014 literally just 1 person in all of Poland has the surname Mozela, I suspect it's an error. The 58 people in Brazil with the name are harder to just explain away, but some of them seem to be only close matches in spelling, which still leaves me thinking that an error in reading written documents might have propagated its way to their database. Without paying I cant know.  Lastly, I found one entry where the notice (born Mozela) referred not to a maiden name but to a birthplace .... I don't think that's a major factor in the errors on sites like these, but it looks like a minor one. — Soap — 00:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

RFV Passed. Ioaxxere (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)