Boston Tax Records
I have 2 questions:
- should records with "jr" be indexed. If so is "jr" omitted. Eg: John Jr and John
- If there is are duplicate names with different occupations should they be index as unique.
Answers
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Hi @galebj
1) YES-omit Jr. jr is a Suffix (follows a name) and there is a Field for a Prefix (term or title like Mr. or Mrs or Dr or Rev that precedes a name) but not for a Suffix. So we drop the jr or Sr or II or 2nd etc.
2) NO -they shouldn’t. Occupations are not captured (indexed) fields, so they don’t affect/induce “uniqueness” for indexing purposes - In this project. The real test of “uniqueness” is whether the resulting entries are different. E.g., for the same year (1915 as below) two persons named Matthew A Desmond, no prefix, one a farmer and one a cooper, say, are both adequately represented by the single entry below. Matthew A the farmer and Matthew A the cooper would generate Identical (not unique) entries, so create it only once. Researchers will see their different occupations when a search draws them to the image, and they can find their relative Matthew A accordingly. To put an exclamation point on it, the system deletes all but the first identical consecutive entries.
If the cooper were named Matthew A and the farmer were named Matthew (no A) the story would be different - they would each get a separate entry because those entries would be different from one another I.e. “unique.”
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2 is what I thought.
1 does that mean they are different or the same?
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If the only difference is the Jr suffix, the entries will be the same, so only one is needed.
So, for example. If you had a John Smith and a John Smith Jr., and the same date (say 1915) since we don't index Jr, their entries would look like these:
For John Smith: Date:1915 Surname: Smith Prefix: <Blank> Given Names: John
For John Smith Jr: Date:1915 Surname: Smith Prefix: <Blank> Given Names: John
So, you can see that both entries are the same, so you need only one entry to represent both John Smith and his son.
If the project had a Suffix field, then the Jr would be indexed, and the resulting entries would be different for the two men - one entry would have Jr in the Suffix field, and the other's Suffix field would be <Blank>, and you'd need both. But as it is, the entries are the same, so you only need one.
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