What to do if unsure about a name?

Nathan Thomas Harvey

Doing a batch and the name is partially covered. I've got a first initial A and it ends in HAM (Probably abraham) but I could be misreading it.

Is it better to leave just an initial, mark illegible, or to add the presumed name?

(Link to the batch if you want to look at it: https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/9b5c0cf9-28ca-4962-a856-26b581c5fe00 image 4)

Melissa S Himes

Nathan Thomas, this type of situation falls under Unreadable Information in the General Indexing Guidelines. These are found in the Project Instructions which can be opened at any time by clicking on the last icon in the horizontal toolbar.

So if you can read the A and the ending ham, and it is one name (you mentioned abraham) you would index this as A*ham.

Unreadable Information

Some information may be difficult to read because of damage to a document or other factors. You can represent unreadable information in various ways, depending on how much information is unreadable.

• One character . If you are unable to read 1 letter or number, use a question mark ( ? ) to replace the unreadable letter or number.
• Example: H?ndley .
• Multiple characters . For consecutive unreadable letters or numbers, use an asterisk (* ) to replace the unreadable group of letters or numbers.
• Example: Di*son .
• One field . for an indexing field is unreadable, to mark the field as Unreadable , click in the field, and press Ctrl + U , or on the indexing toolbar, click the 
•  icon .
• Entire record . When all of the information in an entire record is unreadable, including the name, date, and any information for other required fields, to mark the record as Unreadable , press Ctrl + Shift + U .
• Entire image . If none of the information to be indexed on the image is readable, mark it in Step 1: Images as No, No Extractable Data .

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genthusiast

@Nathan Thomas Harvey I would probably Index it as *ham - you are right it's difficult - might be Oldham - just not sure.