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Surname capitalization

bethanyrose
bethanyrose ✭
January 31 edited January 31 in Family Tree

My surname is McFarland, not Mcfarland. My father's surname is McFarland, not Mcfarland. My sister's surname is McFarland, not Mcfarland. My dad's obituary has his surname correctly spelled as McFarland, not Mcfarland. My sister's birth certificate has her surname spelled as McFarland, not Mcfarland. It is frustrating when our surname is spelled wrong. I hate to see the "F" transcribed as "f." That's not how it's written in the original documents. Why is it always mis-transcribed? And more to the point, why is the Edit button greyed out so I can't correct the mistake?!

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  • surname
  • User corrections
  • name correction
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Answers

  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    January 31

    Indexes are not data; they are merely finding aids for data -- and the search algorithms are case-insensitive.

    (Don't necessarily blame the indexers: the indexing software tends toward a smarter-than-thou treatment of capitalization, where you have to argue with it to uncapitalize a first letter or to capitalize a middle letter.)

    5
  • Áine Ní Donnghaile
    Áine Ní Donnghaile ✭✭✭✭✭
    January 31

    If the image does not reside on FamilySearch, editing is not available. Only those items with an attached image can be edited, and not all of those, so far.

    3
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