Priscilla: There are no hard-and-fast rules about the AKA field. At one extreme, researchers believe it should be used for only those names actually (and officially) used by the individual. At the other extreme, researchers include every spelling variation found in any record (which is potentially helpful in doing searches). Probably most of us fall somewhere in the middle. I suspect Geoff's decision in the case of this particular ancestor was based on the fact that the given name field would already include both names and adding an AKA would be somewhat redundant, but it certainly could have been done that way.
Kirsten -----Original Message----- From: Priscilla Glasow [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2011 10:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] Name Variations I’m trying to understand a seeming inconsistency in the Events and Chronologies training video. In the census records section, when a misspelled name is found in a census record, it is captured as an AKA. Later, Geoff finds that an ancestor named “Marsden Brown” is presumably “Joshua Marsden Brown” as indicated by a military record. In this instance, the name field is updated rather than captured as an AKA. Why are these handled differently please? Priscilla Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
