Why are only one individual name allowed in the US City Directories
US—City Directories, 1902–1935 [Part B][MQN7-16X]
There are individuals with the same name but have different occupations and addresses and they are not allowed to be indexed! I thought that directories should have all the names of people in the district/area. How can you say that one Miss Ward (Typist) is the same as another Miss Ward (clrk) or Grocer.
So many names are being missed.😔
Answers
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You have to understand what an index is. If you had five Miss Wards in the Family Search index for that particular image, as far as a researcher finding Miss Ward in that image, only being in the index once would direct the researcher to that image. Then the researcher can see all the Miss Wards and their occupations and determine which is the one he's interested in. The names aren't being missed because it's the same name. Having the researcher look up each Miss Ward in the Family Search index and finding them both on the same image is redundant. He'd still have to determine which is the one he's interested in.
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How about if there are several of the same name but have different middle initials? Like Mary Powell, Mary A Powell and Mary C Powell. Do you index Mary A Powell and Mary C Powell as separate names, or not?
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Mary A and Mary C are unique names, so both will be indexed. What is not indexed is subsequent duplicates of the same name, so if you have five Mary A Powell's, you will only index the first Mary A Powell, the skip to the next unique name (ex: Mary C Powell).
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Got it! Thank you!
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