Hasn't this conversation drifted totally away from Legacy support to a general genealogy discussion?
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Penny Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 12:58 PM To: LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Followup to Discussion about Periods after Initials. I have a cousin whose birth certificate reads "R. L. Corley" - with full stop after each of the letters. His father was also "R. L. Corley". His grandfather was Robert Lee Corley. My cousin's signature was quite illegible, so I don't know if he put the periods after the letters, even if that is a factor. His U.S. Army service records read "R. L. (io) Corley". My question to the group is: Given that his birth certificate, military records, and death certificate have full stops after the letters, should I not go ahead record his name the same way in my own database? If so, how to make it clear immediately to those who did not know him that these letters are his name and not just initials? It doesn't help that he assumed the nickname "Bob" in middle life - although I never knew anyone in the family who called him that. Only business associates and friends did so. If I include Bob Corley as an aka, it's even more likely someone might erroneously assume the R. stands for Robert. So, while I agree that consistently omitting full stops on letters that are actually names rather than initials is a good idea - in this case it wouldn't be entirely accurate, imo. How would you handle this case? Penny ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenny M Benson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Gary Brown wrote >As in the case of: "Harry S Truman." His whole middle name was "S" , >not an abbreviation. Should his family simply add a period >arbitrarily, as needed, so as to not upset the software? I think that is an excellent example of why one should, in *most* instances, put a full stop after a single letter. Those "most cases" being when the single letter is, in fact, an abbreviation. Then when the single letter is *not* an abbreviation, as in the case of Harry S Truman and those German folk someone mentioned, the full stop is omitted and Legacy is told to ignore this "error." Provided one is consistent, it is then quite obvious which single letters are initials (perhaps full name is still unknown) and which are complete in themselves. -- Jenny M Benson 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 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
