Don, I cant answer the question as to why Legacy does the things it does as far as name conventions.....
But I have a large database of almost 250,000. The problems come most often because of exchanging gedcoms where importing and exporting data doesnt always end up in the right place causing errors. Wherever I can I place a name and a date to help define the person I use UnknownM and UnknownF for given names and Unknown as a surname You can tell Legacy to exclude specific names on the potential problems list. I also add in usually some kind of date definer. Say as you mentioned as married females parents and siblings..... Let say the lady was born in 1900 and married in 1918. I would add her parents as UnknownM Unknown born Bef 1882 and married Bef 1900 to UnknownF Unknown also born Bef 1882 and under the parents add the siblings like Margaret Unknown born 1915 and John Unknown born 1918 If you were to leave the default Legacy of just no names but a defacto (unknown and unknown) couple that connected to the Margaret and John siblings... because there are no dates for the parents they would export in any gedcom as LIVING persons. With dates added Legacy has a better chance on not selecting them when searching for duplicates (If I didnt have all these (placeholders) my duplicate search would have over 1,000,000 potentials to review....lol) so my general rules of thumb for date estimations are; abt. (about) is used whenever the date is NOT exact OR complete; Dec 2008 is listed as "abt. Dec 2008" aft. (after) is used for birth dates and estimates the birth took place after the marriage of the parents. aft. (after) used in birth dates estimates the birth took place after the parent was 18 years of age. aft. (after) used in marriage dates estimates the couple were married after the eldest spouse was at least 18 years of age. bef. (before) used in marriages dates estimates a couple were married before the date of birth of any children. bef. (before) used in death dates estimates a person died before the age of 100. bet. (between) used in birth dates estimates a person was born between a range of dates when they are not listed on a census and are listed on the next census. bet. (between) used in marriage dates estimates a range of dates from aft 18 years of age of the eldest spouse to some other date information from another source. cir. (circa) used in birth dates estimates a spouses birth date is close to the same year as their spouse and is used only when no other estimated dates can be determined. Yes, there will be people you find that actual date falls outside of these generalizations, (like the 3/10ths of 1 % of persons that live to be over 100 in my datafile) that is an acceptable range for error. Hope this helps Jay On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 10:23 AM, Don Quigley <[email protected]> wrote: > Some of the recent messages have prompted this more general question I > have about how to enter “names” for unknown persons in Legacy, particularly > for persons with no known given or surname. This situation typically > arises for a female with no known surname, for whom I have information > about her parents that I want to record and have in the database when (if) > I find the missing names. I also need parents for siblings to be linked, > even if their surnames are unknown. > > > > I have always used ??? as the unknown given and/or surname for a person. > Legacy warns me against doing so, but allows me to do it. However, if I > leave both fields blank, Legacy will prevent me from saving the person. > > > > For me, ??? seems to work well, but I’ve often wondered why does Legacy > (and other geneaology sources) warn against the use of a questionmark in a > name? Are they just referring to the practice of trying to show > uncertainty about a name – i.e., John Smith?. I don’t do that. > > > > Donald Quigley > > Escondido, CA > > Quigley Doyle Family Tree > > http://www.donquigley.net > > > > > 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://support.legacyfamilytree.com > 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 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://support.legacyfamilytree.com 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
