A fact from Elinor Frances Vallentin appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 December 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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I don't see that any of the sources I can access write out her middle initial. The IPNI author record gives her middle name as "Frances", not "Francis". Are there any sources for the "Francis" spelling? Plantdrew (talk) 00:25, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your edits and help with this article. As regards the "Francis" spelling I got that from here. This is a database I frequently check for scientific illustrators. I'm just assuming that they are correct though! It looks like they got her full name from Claus Nissen's book Die botanische Buchillustration: ihre Geschichte und Bibliographie 1966, Stuttgart, but I don't have access to this work. I'll try and dig a bit deeper to see if I can confirm Ambrosia10 (talk) 01:26, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've also found this from OCLC WorldCat. I've checked the JSTOR Global Plants site and Kew appears to list her as "Elinor Frances" but I've also double checked the digitised specimen sheets that I have access to over the internet and none of the labels actually state her full name. See [1]. So I still can't confirm either spelling. Ambrosia10 (talk) 01:44, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, for this specimen JSTOR claims the spelling "Frances". I don't have permission to view the large image at home (I don't know the source of JSTOR's metadata; I'd really like to see the specimen label (hopefully it's in her handwriting)). I'll try to remember to check it on Monday when I have better JSTOR permissions. Also, I should have thought to check Harvard's Index of Botanists earlier. I did so now, and they've got the "Frances" spelling (see here) Plantdrew (talk) 02:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've had a good look at that label as I do have access but it only lists her name as "Mrs E. Vallentin". I've examined the writing on the other specimens on that sheet but they just give locations of collection etc. As I said above, I can't see anything on the few specimen sheets that have been digitized that lists her full name, so I'm still at a loss to understand where Kew got the "Frances" spelling from. I'm not surprised that the Harvard's Index of Botanists lists her name as "Frances" if Kew did. I'm going to email the archives at Kew to see if they can shed any light on this as it would be nice to make sure Wikipedia actually have her name correct! Thanks again for all your help on this. Ambrosia10 (talk) 03:14, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Further to the above, Kew got back to me and said they checked their records but couldn't find an instance of Vallentin using her full name. They could only point to their library catalogue with this website [2] as listing her name. Unfortunately the link appears not to work. I'm now going to see if I can find someone to find the possible reference in Claus Nissen's book to see if that can shed any light on the matter.Ambrosia10 (talk) 17:10, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately I've been unable to get access to the above mentioned book to try and sort out the issue regarding Vallentin's middle name. If any other editors can assist in this matter I'd be very grateful. Ambrosia10 (talk) 18:37, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A wonderful friend has tracked down a citable source for Vallentin's middle name. See this. I can confirm that on the basis of this work her full name is Elinor Frances Vallentin. I'm going to request that the article to renamed and will edit to reflect information in that reference. Ambrosia10 (talk) 19:10, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
