I'm going to come at this from a different direction--how it affects my ability to work with my genealogy software database. As I depend on my database a lot to find people, it's important that I think through how I might search for them. For awhile, I was doing first middle surname when their were compound surnames. But, what I found is it is really frustating to scroll through 300 people with the Pacheco surname, 10-20 of them in groups with all the same first names and I have to figure out which is the Pacheco Barbosa. (For instance, Pacheco, Joao; Pacheco, Joao Barbosa, Pacheco, Joao Francisco...) I found I do not like it.
Since RootsMagic gives me considerable leeway with surnames and allows me to create alternative names very easily, I've decided recently to go back to compound surnames in the surname field only. If the person has a true middle name, I use it in the middle name field. Or, if it is a female where she is recorded with a religious name but also her surname, I put the religious name in the middle name field. If I feel I need to identify it in multiple ways for ease in finding the person, then I add an alternative name field. (RootsMagic allows those to be searchable or not) Also, when the name is something like Francisco de Braga, I input it as Francisco de (first name) and Braga (surname). This is probably odd to others, but I would rather have my database file them under Braga than under "de" which might be hundreds and hundreds of people. This probably isn't the accepted way, but I find this is what works for me. -- For options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/azores.
