Special Characters in the Name Field

melville,dl

When entering information in the NAME field of Family tree, why is "nickname" acceptable and (nickname) is not? Using parenthesis causes the "Possible Error" message but using quotes does not. Is there a reason? Doesn't seem consistent. I believe the use of the Alternate Name field would be the best place to enter nicknames. Just my thoughts

DL Melville

Paul W

@melville,dl

It is (or should be) standard practice to put any variants / nicknames as Alternate Names, as you suggest. So, regardless of the format, I would edit the names inputted to include a nickname to exclude such. For example, if another user has inputted a name as John "Chalky" White, I would edit the name under Vitals to John White and add Chalky White as an Alternate Name.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting the error message when parenthesis are used, but not when quotes are used - as using either is bad practice.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

They might simply be overcompensating: apostrophes are valid characters in names, and on most computer input devices, there's no distinction between apostrophes and single quotes. To avoid disallowing valid characters, perhaps they've opted to simply allow all forms of quotes.

Or it could be weird historical reasons, accomodating legacy data.

Tennuchi Alan Cyril Edward

This article found in the Help section in FamilySearch is always worth looking at:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-to-enter-names-in-family-tree