Name Titles
Currently you do not allow the use of numbers in the Title Field of the Name. With so many military members on file, it would be nice to be able to put their rank in that field. Examples: 1st Lt. 2nd Lt. CW2, CW3, CW4, etc. I know there are also other designations.
I can understand that you may not want a general use of numbers in that field, but maybe you could build a table of acceptable designations. My husband is a wounded veteran and I believe he and others deserve this recognition. I truly hope you will consider this. Thanks
Margaret3908
Comments
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Although you make a perfectly reasonable request, my personal option has always been to omit any prefix (or suffix) to the individual I have added to Family Tree. After all, apart from nobility / royalty, people aren't born with titles or ranks, and the general practice recommended by guidelines (and other users) is to add the name given at birth / baptism, unless a person was known otherwise (say by an adoptive father's surname) throughout most of their life.
However, the fact that there are fields for titles and suffixes shows it is perfectly in order to add them, if you wish. It might appear to be pedantic, but the field is headed "Title" (not Rank), but I suppose numericals could be part of a royal title, so your suggestion might have broader application, too.
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Margaret3908 I agree with your suggestion, but we need additional characters. Remember, when a service member retires, they have a "(RET)" at the end. I have a relative who is a COL (RET). Parentheses are not allowed either. When you look at a help article for how to enter the name fields, an example of a title is Mister. I think that generates so much confusion because that title really applies to every single male in the tree, at least for some cultures and languages, but it certainly implies that if someone has gone by a rank or title, we can put it. I put Dr. in the title field for my physicians and the same for relatives who had a PhD in something. Occupation is where you put the details of were they Army or Air Force; Ear Nose and Throat, or Anesthesiology; Astronomy or Physics.
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I could've sworn that there was a place to put military rank under Other Information, but I would've been wrong: there are Title of Nobility and Military Service "events", but nothing closer to "rank".
I suppose you could use Military Service for something like "U.S. Army, COL (RET)" and the date of retirement....
(Just 'cause it's date-specific doesn't make it an event. Can we please just have a list of other information, with a date field available or not, as appropriate? Or just have a date field available regardless?)
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It seems to me that using Military Service would be most appropriate since each rank would be for a specific period of time. This allows you to show someone's entire history instead of freezing their life at one particular moment by putting a single prefix on their name. Also, the Event area more easily allows you to write out the entire rank. Those abbreviations make no sense at all to people without a military background or from a different country.
Be complete and do this:
(While the entire date range may not be an event, the awarding of a new rank is certainly an event.
"Hi, John, any fun events this week."
"Nope, no events of any kind this week."
"But I thought you got promoted on Tuesday."
"Yeah, but it wasn't an event. There was just a big ceremony and we had a nice party afterwards.")
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@Paul W said
It might appear to be pedantic, but the field is headed "Title" (not Rank),
It's a bit weird - the GEDCOM specification has a Prefix at the start of the name, while TITL (i.e. Title, aka NOBILITY_TYPE_TITLE) is a separate attribute.
FS FamilyTree has a Title at the beginning of the name (not "prefix") and "Title of Nobility" as an event (matching GEDCOM but duplicating - sort of - FS FT's own structure). Why they removed "Prefix" in favour of the partially duplicative "Title", I have no idea.
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@Adrian Bruce1 said:
Why they removed "Prefix" in favour of the partially duplicative "Title", I have no idea.
There was no removal -- it was simply a choice made in the user interface that the term "title" would be more meaningful to users than the techy term "prefix." The choices made for field labels in the GEDCOM spec have nothing to do with what appears in the user interface, and I see no reason why they would need to be consistent.
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@Alan E. Brown said
... simply a choice made in the user interface that the term "title" would be more meaningful to users than the techy term "prefix." ...
I think it's possibly six of one and half a dozen of the other. Coming from the UK, for me, the term "Title" is associated more with the aristocracy. I don't particularly think of "Captain" as a "Title", so I'd not be certain how to treat the name of "Captain Picard" if I wanted to enter it. I'd probably put "Captain" in the "Title" simply because nothing else seemed to fit (if I was treating it as a name, which is perhaps a moot point).
As for differences between field labels in GEDCOM and in the FSFT User Interface - fair comment, though sometimes where the concepts in the GEDCOM file format differ from FSFT, changes in nomenclature obscure whether it's a genuine concept change or a name change. But then it's probably only programming nerds like me who are likely to compare the things.
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