One of the main reasons I switched to Legacy many years ago was the facility of its AKAs. The majority of my entries have multiple names, mostly titles by which they were known. It is invaluable that I can list all of these names and find each one almost as easily as main surname. I wish they were also included when adding parents.
When researching old records, Visitations, genealogies and the like, any one of many names may be used. It is of incalculable value to be able to go to my Index and find the person whom I list as Humphrey de /Bohun/, 2nd Earl of Essex, but who is referred to in research as Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of /Hereford/, or as Humphrey de Bohun, 1st Earl of /Essex/, and several more. It is also invaluable in creating a list of successive lords, dukes, kings, or whatever, because I can use the place as a surname also (as above). With more recent ancestors, name changes were not always successive, especially because there was no spelling consistency in English until the OED in the late 1880s. Just read some early American wills if you haven't already. And that's just English! When dealing with foreign names, it is marvelous to be able to use Wilhelm, Willem, Guillaume, and William, for example, as well as the mangled English attempts at reproducing foreign surnames. Yes, sometimes, such as when the US Immigration officials decided that my brother-in-law's first name was not a real name, they changed it right there on Ellis Island, it is nice to be able to date the change. Census takers were challenged by the accents of their interviewees and their own lack of knowledge how to spell foreign names. That a name was different on a census was usually a result of such rather than a true name change. My Quin relatives were sometimes correctly listed as Quin, but too often as Quinn, because that's the way the census taker thought it was spelled. There never was any actual name change. Carolyn -----Original Message----- From: k...@legacyfamilytree.com [mailto:k...@legacyfamilytree.com] On Behalf Of Dennis M. Kowallek Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 1:12 PM To: LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Sorting AKAs On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:47:47 -0700, Richard Van Wasshnova <rfvanwasshn...@gmail.com> wrote: >Whenever I have 2 or more AKAs for an individual I strongly wish they >were in chronological order. If I start with baptism name and source >it, then as a 5 yr old in census the second entry goes on top. I would >really like to see a date for each AKA AND the Up/Down arrow to >manually shift position to see how a name evolves with time. > >It looks like they could be re-ordered from Access tblNX on an >individual basis but you would first need to check each source date to >determine preferred order. > >Does anyone else agreethis would be a valuable enhancement? If I were starting over I would abandon AKAs all together and just put this kind of info in Event/Fact. You can order them, assign dates, make them private, categorize them (misspelling, transcription error, nickname, legal name change, etc.), customize the report sentence ... all the things you can't do with an AKA. -- Dennis Kowallek (LTools) http://zippersoftware.com/ltools http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ltools Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.238 / Virus Database: 270.11.58/2061 - Release Date: 04/23/09 19:21:00 Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
