Name shown as the person who made a change
Under my "Following" list for today (Oct 5) there was listed
1/ Robert LZGQ-LJX
2/ Herlea KDQH-DJG
On the right side of their change listing it show the person who made the change as L Leonore Ackerson
This is confusing because all of the other chanes I have made shows L Lenore Akerson - which is correct.
I have never used L Leonore Ackerson, so how could it be there unless someone is using my name (even tho mis-spelled) ?
Best Answers
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I was convinced my account had been hacked when I encountered a very similar situation. However, the user with the very similar name to mine responded to my message, confirming his (genuine) identity.
If you don't get any response from the similarly named user, I suppose you could report this to Support (although email is no longer available) as a possible security problem.
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As long as all the names a person may have ever been know by are listed in the Alternate Name section, the search engine will find them no matter which of those names the person uses in the search. Plus the fuzziness of the search engine will generally find the correct person as long as the search name is somewhat close to either the main name or one of the alternate names. To take your example of Charlemagne, every configuration of his name in all major languages should be entered as alternate names. Then searching for him is easy:
Searching for Charlemagne shows exactly that in the search results even though it is an alternate name, not his main name.
I suspect we are going to see more and more disagreements about how names should be entered now that FamilySearch is available in 30 languages and is used all over the world. Personally I am coming to the conclusion that we should enter people names in the language they would have used, not the one we use.
An interesting enhancement to Family Tree would be that if an alternate name was set as a birth name and had a specific language flag set, then that name would shift to be the main name if the site was set to that language.
The only semi-official, semi-authoritative answer you are going to get from FamilySearch is what is in the Help Center article: https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-to-enter-names-in-family-tree The guidelines are vague because there are so many exceptions to any possible guideline. For example, the most common guideline is to always enter a person's name as they were know at birth. For Charlemagne, that would not include "the Great" or king of anything so would probably not make anyone happy.
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Hi Lenore.
How weird. You are able to send her a message... even view the relationship between you. Be interesting to see what happens in either situation.... or even if you get a response!
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I spend a lot of time on FT disambiguating persons with the same or nearly the same name, so can totally see where you might run across someone with a name similar to yours.
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Sent a message- received no reply
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No reply is the norm on FT.
This other contributor may be related to you. Does a branch of your family spell their surname Ackerson? Does Lenore / Leonore occur in that family?
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Depending on how the person has her notifications set, she may not even find out about your message until she next logs in to FamilySearch -- which may be months from now.
When you click on the person's name, what does the flyout say about your relationship?
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More than likely there are two different Lenore Akerson FamilySearch accounts. One as you and one as Leonore Ackerson. I would suggest that wait for a reply from Leonore as @DianaHawks indicated above. It is not uncommon for people to have very similar names. Plus it may be exciting to find out how you are both related.
Hopefully this will help.
Thank you for contacting FamilySearch. Best wishes as you continue finding records for your family.
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I think someone has created this "Leonore Ackerson" account to cause a problem. There are several people who are renaming historical people by using their 'language name' = meaninng the name they went by while living, rather than the name historians have been using for years. The ones I am refering to are;
William The Conqueror 9H17-VTZ
Robert I LZGQ-LJX and spouse Aarleatte "Herleva" KDQH-DJG
Charlemagne LZ62-TSV
Louis I LZT6-KB5
If you look at these people in FS, you will see that there are daily changes (especially with Charlemagne and his son Louis I).
You may think that it is best to use their so called original name; however, people looking for them using the English language will not find Charlemagne by this name as it is most likely shown as Karl der GroBE Romischer Kaiser und Konig der Franken. Louis I is usually Ludwig I "der Fromme " Römischer Kaiser und König der Franken or as Hludowic I König des Fränkischen Reiches und Römischer Kaiser.
I would like someone in 'authority' at Family Search to tell me which should be used. Using the English language, I feel Charlemagne and Louis I should be used, and if others prefer the original names, then they should change the language they use while in FS. However, I will abide by those in authority.
Lenore Akerson
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