Latin names- BEWARE!

I have recently seen some one's family history record who had names written down on their family tree such as "Antoniam," "Dominicus," & "Josephi." This makes me cringe! They had taken these names straight from the latin record and left them in their declined state, which is incorrect. Why? you may ask; I will tell you.

I am currently taking a Latin class and BYU. We have learned some good principles about nouns that everyone who reads latin records should be aware of. Nouns, in Latin, are declined according to the position they take in the sentence. For each position; subject, direct object, indirect object, etc.., there is an ending attached to the noun.

For example if our friend named Joseph took the position as the subject of the sentence we would add "-us" to the end of his name, making him "Josephus". If he was the direct object an "-um" would be tacked on and his name would appear as "Josephum." If we said of or from Joseph we would write his name as "Josephi." If we used his name as and indirect object we would write, "Josepho." Yet his real name, the one that should be on the PAF, is Joseph, or in Italian= Giuseppe, or in Spanish =Jose.

I hope this clarifies this for those who research in latin records.