Other than a middle name section that is optional, nothing else is needed. Number 3 in your list should read :
3. After moving and graduation from school, people starting calling me
"Tom", so my name went to
Dr. Tom Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. MD
That is if you are a medical doctor. If you are a physicist or chemist etc. it would be
Dr. Tom Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. BSc. MSc. PhD (suffix field)
or if you are a medical doctor and have the other degrees it would read
Dr. Tom Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. MD BSc. MSc. PhD (suffix field)
They would also be listed under events, where and when the degrees were given. Hopefully you would keep track of such important details. Also would you not go by the last name you are using -that is #6 6. Then people started calling me "El Tora", and my name went to Professor El Tora Tony Lathrope, I and then put the rest into the AKA field? This is what I do. No more fields required.
The last farm that the person lived at and died is the one I use in the Surname field. All others go into the events and notes, notes because of different spellings that are too numerous to go into events. So you have 'so and so lived in blah blah blah in 1795. in 1800 he moved to blah blah blah.' Hopefully you do keep track of all the places you and your ancestors lived, my 2nd cousin never knew his grandfather lived in Iowa until a few months ago. The reason the farm name is put into the surname is that it is used as an identifier of a person in Norway and many other countries, and it is nice to be able to see it right there in front of you when you are searching.
The answer to the following question you have is in fact none except for the middle name field. Legacy does have most things pretty well covered.
So, this person has had 6 different names that included a combination of
nicknames, different title suffix & prefix names, different last, first,
middle, etc names. So, let me ask the question again -- how many name
fields do I need to be able to enter this person one time in my database and
be able to sort on any combination of a unique field name?? (It is probably
about 50-80 - one will likely need additional fields just to support the
name fields - a date, location [city, county, state, zip, country, GPS
Coordinates], etc fields to keep up with all these name changes.)
I think Kristen has given very good explanations as to why he and others find a Middle name field useful. I think Lee is trying to be helpful. I thank Kristen for his explanations and Lee for his ideas. Like questions I don't think any idea is bad, just that some ideas are more useful than others. I hope that everyone continues to give their ideas, something good may come out of them that may not even be expected and used for something entirely different. Now I am off the soap box...
Carol
Leon Chapman wrote:
I'm sorry, I just do not believe all these name fields is worth the effort folks. If one really wanted to design a generic fit all cases for as many names and supporting fields that a person might have over a lifetime, then how many fields does one need? I do not think there is an answer for this -and hence, one cannot design a piece of software that handles all the unknowns?
Let's try an example, say my name was: 1. Mr. Thomas Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. I count 8 possible fields required. Can I combine any - sure, which ones? 2. People started calling me "Tommie", so my name went to Mr. Tommie Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. 3. After moving and graduation from school, people starting calling me "Tom", so my name went to Dr. Tom Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. 4. Later on, I took on a nick name of "Tony", so my name went to Dr. T. Tony El Tora De Lathorpeee, Sr. 5. After that, I formally changed my name to Dr. Tony A. Tora Lathrope, I 6. Then people started calling me "El Tora", and my name went to Professor El Tora Tony Lathrope, I
So, this person has had 6 different names that included a combination of nicknames, different title suffix & prefix names, different last, first, middle, etc names. So, let me ask the question again -- how many name fields do I need to be able to enter this person one time in my database and be able to sort on any combination of a unique field name?? (It is probably about 50-80 - one will likely need additional fields just to support the name fields - a date, location [city, county, state, zip, country, GPS Coordinates], etc fields to keep up with all these name changes.)
The answers to how many name fields is, unknown, because tomorrow his name will change again or someone will have other names that exceed the 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or however many name fields that is set as a limit.
I think we already have the answer in Legacy as it is -- place all of this information in the "Notes" field for this individual. The user can choose whatever name (in the above example, maybe use "Professor El Tora Tony Lathrope, I"). Document all others in the Notes field.
I have about 40,000 folks in my database and would not look forward to converting all of those folks using a new "Middle Name" field - that task would probably cause me to move to another Genealogy program. I have written code to do that for a financial system many years ago, and you cannot anticipate all of the combinations of names - in my example above, what is the first, middle and last name for "Thomas Anthony El Tora De Lathorpeee"?
I have not seen any of the other popular Genealogy programs using more than: Prefix, Given, Surname, Suffix. There are some that don't cover those 4 name fields.
I would recommend simply changing the "Name" Event information to appear ASAP after the name would be good enough in my vote. Then one could place as many different names as you wanted for an individual and have them appear close to the primary name used.
So much for the Soap Box. No comments are necessary, this is just my opinion.
Chap Leon Chapman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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