How do you index nicknames, if at all?
I am working on the Oklahoma Pawnee school census and generally the parent puts the name on top then signs at the bottom. I am on a record where the name up top is "Bob," but they signed it "Bobby." I'm fairly certain Bobby is the nickname for Bob, but how do I index this? Do I do something like Bob "Bobby" in given name? or just Bob? or just Bobby? Or something else?
Answers
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For any profile, I include the nickname after both the first and middle name in quotes - just like you did for your Index suggestion. I do that precisely because of your given example - so the record can be found by FamilySearch - that will then possibly be made available as a Historical Record for that particular individual.
So, just for me and others like me, please include any nickname in quotes in the given name section.
Just for the record, I am a Robert as an adult, but as a kid, everyone knew me as Bobby and Dad was known - always known - as Bob. So with his profile, I have included him as 'Robert Moberly "Bob" Pritchett'.
The fuzzy logic used by the FamilySearch system will hunt down records with nicknames so those can be included in fleshing out profiles.
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You will index it as Bob Or Bobby, without the quotes, and the surname. The researcher can either see the quotes or infer it from other information. This falls under Alias Name in General Indexing Guidelines:
If alias names were included on a document, or if an individual's name was listed with various spellings on the document, include all variants, separating each with the word Or. For example, if a name was written as "Georgios (George), George Broski, George Browzowski, or George Brzozowski," index the name fields as follows:
- Given Name: Georgios Or George
- Surname: Broski Or Browzowski Or Brzozowski
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Thank you, erutherford.
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Hopefully the FamilySearch/Indexing programmers have addressed all instances of "Or" in their coding by using Artificial Intelligence, so as not to be using "Or" as an abbreviation for a name or variation thereof and includes lowercase of "or".
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When indexing the given name with a space marker between Bob and Bobby, the record will read as Bob Or Bobby but I believe quotation marks are not considered as punctuation and don't appear on the indexed record. Some of us "old folks" don't necessarily believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all that "smart" or that AI will be doing genealogical research. Just sayin'🤣
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FamilySearch has been using Or for years and works perfectly in a search. I'm not sure if AI will be as efficient as humans in locating the nicknames. But, I did work on a project a few years ago called Zoning where we were highlighting portions of newspapers that would be indexed. The work was helping to train AI to pick up the nuances of newspaper publications. These programmers at FS were cutting edge in the beginning of crowd-sourcing technology, and I'll bet the same applies to AI indexing and genealogy. There are some fascinating publications in the BYU scholars archives and other websites detailing their work. Top-notch groups at FamilySearch and BYU.
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Thanks, Melissa 😎 My comment was not directed at FS Programmers, I'm very much in awe of everyone who understands and use all this new technology to our benefit. Grateful too, that I can participate in all that Family Search has to offer.😎
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