etiquette for uniquely identifying namesakes?

[rram]

The problem with the Roman Numeral solution is what do you do when you get back another generation and find the father was yet again called Thomas?  I have learned over the years to never number anything starting form the top of your tree you always find another one and then have to decide whether to deal with the trauma of renumbering.

It's essentially a database question.  The database solution is to have a unique key for each entry in a table.  The key is not normally visible in query retrievals, usually being kept behind the scenes.

In written histories, I think the birthyear solution is fine.  I note one person in this thread has a firstname with a year number appended, but in a history, one could write something like "Jane (1905)" or Jane-1950, as has been suggested.

[nudge67]

At the moment I have the pages headed:


John(I) Edwards
Thomas Henry(I) & Elizabeth Edwards
Thomas Henry(I) & Mary Edwards
Thomas Henry(II) & Catherine Edwards
John(II) & Sarah Jemima Edwards

using their partners to help identify them, and writing them up as a family rather than an individual (Thomas Henry the first had two marriages)