US City and Business Directories

LauraJerrell1

When a Surname is listed as hyphenated, do we index it as one name? I always thought a hyphenated name is just one surname. Is that correct?

Allison Lathrop

Hi Laura,

In order to answer your question, please send the Share Batch number which is found after the name of the batch at the top of your screen.. Another helper is to go to the General Indexing Guidelines which explains how to index a surname.

John Empoliti

Hi Laura.

To Allison’s point about the need to look at your batch: In this Project if a listing said Baker-Smith Wines (a business) then we would create two entries, one with SN = Baker, GN = Ctrl+B (<Blank>), and one with SN = Smith, GN = Ctrl+B.

If a listing said Baker-Smith, Laura (John) or maybe (wid John) then we would create an entry for Laura that looked like SN = Baker-Smith, GN = Laura and one for John with SN = Ctrl+B, GN = John. It depends on the context. Correction: as @AGTHBG stated below, I am of course incorrect in the second part of this paragraph. John is indexed as part of the Entry for the principal, Laura (not in his own Entry) in this hypothetical. I got carried away with entries.

I suppose that Baker-Smith Wines could have been Laura’s business, in which case the better choice for indexing that business would have been just one entry with SN = Baker-Smith, GN = Ctrl+B. But without that extra knowledge, for this Project, for a business we would generally create two entries from that hyphenated Surname. as I indicated above.

Please share your batch as Allison requested, so we can be sure.

Susan Ann Mullen

We need a batch code to answer the question you asked.

From memory, and I will source this later, when there are ( ) around a name following the principle person that is the spouse and should be indexed as a spouse instead of adding another entry. Just wanted to clarify that while we wait for a batch code.

edited to add instruction source: Field Help>Spouse's Surname>bullet point 5 states: A spouse's name, if listed, may have been recorded in parentheses or following the abbreviation "wid." after the name of the principal individual.