England and Wales Censuses 1861 and 1891 discard part of First Names in Record Information panel
When I search in either of these specific collections, providing two First Names and a Last Name, I get a list of matching profiles which look as I expect them to. However, when I select one of the results, the resulting Record Information panel shows only the first of the First Names. The same applies to all the other individuals listed in the Record Information; they get only one First Name in the Record Information panel.
For example, if I select the 1861 census and look for John William Palmer with both "exact match" checkboxes ticked, the search will return four records which look OK. But, when I select the first one, he is displayed as "John Palmer", and his sisters Sarah Ann Palmer and Mary Ann Palmer are displayed as "Sarah Palmer" and "Mary Palmer" respectively in the information panel.
Worse than that, the misinformation is transferred to the (old or new) source linker. Apart from the general confusion that this causes, it would be quite easy to lose part of a person's name when creating a new profile from the source linker.
Of the decennial England and Wales censuses, this problem appears to affect only the 1861 and 1891 collections.
Answers
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I immediately replicated this by testing on the name of a relative who had a middle name and is found in the 1891 census.
As you say, the full name appears on the Results page when making a search, but cannot be seen when viewing the record and (as expected) nor in the title of the source, once transferred to his Sources section.
Obviously, this could be by design rather than being a bug, but if a site moderator would kindly pass this to the team responsible we might be provided with a response that explains this behaviour..
Here is an example:
From there, view the record, which you will see has somehow lost the middle name.
Incidentally, I just tested this with other records (christening and birth registration for his brother - same middle name) and can confirm the middle name does not disappear when viewing other types of record.
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I have a counter-example where the title of the source in the profile's Sources tab does match the full name that is shown in the search result list. When you expand the source, the middle initial is missing in the detail. The profile is for James Edward Hadcroft https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/KFBQ-9KB and his source record for the 1891 census is https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QYMC-8MM. The name from the source record as displayed in the collection search result list and in the title of the source on the profile's Sources tab is James E Hadcroft. The title of the source is "James E Hadcroft in household of ? Mercer".
This source was attached to James's profile on July 6, 2017.
Here is the citation for the 1891 census collection: "England and Wales Census, 1891." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 13 January 2024. From "1891 England, Scotland and Wales census." Database and images. findmypast. http://www.findmypast.com : n.d. Citing PRO RG 12. The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
Here is the citation for the source in question: "England and Wales Census, 1891", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QYMC-ST2 : Fri Mar 08 15:36:05 UTC 2024), Entry for Mercer and Alice Mercer, 1891.
I note that the timestamps in these citations are later than the source attachment date. They are very recent, which might explain why this problem does not appear to have been reported earlier. I did search for possible prior reports before I started this discussion, but I didn't find any.
As an aside, the "? Mercer" in this record is James's stepfather Kenyon Mercer, but in the detailed information (and in the collection source result list) he is referred to as just "Mercer". This might be another case of data loss, or it may be that there is a non-printable character in Kenyon's name in the source.
In the case of George Hudson Wrightson, the title of the source does not include the middle name, as @Paul W said. George's source citation also contains a recent timestamp (9 Mar 2024).
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