Why do so many patrons put titles in the suffix field?
Is there some weird guidance somewhere that instructs patrons to put titles in the suffix fields?
Look up Queen Elizabeth Windsor and it's correct there. And then look up King Charlemange, and you'll find the title in the suffix. Does anyone know of a reason for this?
Answers
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Do you mean "prefix" fields? Perhaps you could provide sample IDs to illustrate your point as we can't search on prefixes / suffixes using FIND. The only "similar" example I could find was G71M-BYY.
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@LSMarvin , I too have seen titles in the suffix field. The only thing that I can offer is that FamilySearch does provide guidelines that do address what goes into the Title, and Suffix fields. For the Suffix field, it says, "Enter words like “Jr.” or “Sr.,” or perhaps a Roman numeral, as in “John Smith III.” "
Here's a link to the full article, "How should I enter names in Family Tree."
When I see the Suffix field incorrectly used, in a individual's record to whom I'm related, I correct it and then send a note to the person that made the initial entry and explain why, referencing the above Help article. That usually works.
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What I was referring to is headed "Title" (not Prefix) - my error. I haven't seen "King" or "Queen" in the Suffix field so assumed the poster was talking about the correct way to add a title to a name.
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Take a look at LZ62-TSV and all the families around him. I keep moving titles back to titles, I put the "https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-to-enter-names-in-family-tree in the reason statement. I have communicated to folks about this. None of them will explain why they enter contrary to FS guidelines. To have others there to support the cause would be nice.
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The guidelines appear to have changed over the years, as the common advice used to be to enter the birth name in the Vitals / Birth section and add other names as Alternate Names. Personally, my preference has always been to use the name a person was commonly known as for most of their life.
On the specific issue of titles and suffixes, this does not present a direct problem for me, as I never use them. Royalty can present problems, especially when a person goes from being, say, a prince to a king. However, if I had the need to add royalty to Family Tree, yes, I would put King, Queen, Prince, Princess, etc. in the Title field, followed by the first name(s) in the First Names field, of course, but the last name can complicate matters. Take the example of British royalty - does one add "Windsor" to the Last Names field, or leave this blank?
With suffixes, I guess its more of an American thing to show names as Junior or Senior, or I or II, and these would go in the Suffix field unless the individual was actually registered with a name in this format. If this is the practice (anywhere) I guess it would be correct to add the "suffix" as part of the Last Name.
So, whilst there are guidelines, there are no strict rules and I'm sure customs of practices would very from country to country, as well as through different points in history. (Years ago, I'm sure the British royal family would not have dreamed of using a surname - like Windsor or Wales - as has been the case with the younger generation of "royals".)
For me, the main importance in formatting a name is to do so in a manner that will help the search algorithm locate relating records / sources that are in the FamilySearch database.
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Regarding your example of Charlemagne, it appears the title is being put in the suffix field because it is not a title but rather a full description of who he was. A simple "King" would go into the title. A complex "King of this, lord of that, and duke of over there", as far as I am aware, would have always been read after the name by the local herald as a suffix to someone's name.
Poor Karl. His name has been changed 13 times so far this year. Filter his change log for just Name and that alone is longer than most people's full change log. I really don't understand why people can't just leave him in peace. But I guess it is better that people spend their time fighting over his name than causing trouble elsewhere in Family Tree.
As an example, King Charles III as a name would have King in the prefix or title, Charles as given name and III as a suffix. But the full name he was announced by: "Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith," would be entered with Charles as first name and the Third and all the rest of it as a suffix if you wanted to use that as his name.
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Thanks for feedback. I generally put in King Charles <blank> <blank> myself. But, in the alternate name fields, I put in the last name field things I'd expect patrons to search on in order to find him. "of France", "son of Pepin" "the Great" , etc.
All the junk the patrons keep putting in the suffix field is not searchable. FS staff has indicated they prefer the Primary last name field left blank, as they had no surnames in that era. And they are OK to see different stuff in the last name field of the alternates, as they know there needs to be something searchable somewhere.
The thing is, I can't get the FS staff to reflect this position in any of their documentation. So my rear is hanging in the breeze when I try to educate the other Patrons.
In my dealing with PIDs in the non-surname era, and don't think the FS staff realizes that maybe some things there should be handled differently.
There is so many problems with fact they don't allow a "last" name in that era when it comes to searching. And other patrons don't realize the "fix" is an appropriate entry in the last name field of an alternate name.
While the search tool does allow options to add parents or spouse, have you ever done a search for Joseph son of Jacob and Rachel, based on 1st name entries of all three? And does anyone have any idea their birth/death dates to narrow it down further (without a google search, how embarrassing) ? But, regardless that, the search tool doesn't even accept BC dates.
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