Display alternate names at the top of the person page after the person's name.

LegacyUser

Lyle Clugg said: A lot of users will include alternate names in the name field to make sure they are visible and not forgotten. For example, Louis Gonneau (Gagnon); Thomas Carmody or Carmudy. It would be useful if FT would display the main name and all alternate names at the top of the person page. (This could be an option determined by the user.)

In an earlier thread about alternate names, Ron Tanner noted that all alternate names are always used in searches. I just did a test of this statement on Eliza Jane Gagnon [9X2T-89N]. With no changes, the search on FT produced 5 pages of results. Only one item in the results included her married name of Paquette and that was her son's marriage record which showed her maiden name. When I changed the search criteria from Gagnon to Paquette, I received 3 pages of results including Paquettes. Has something changed so that alternate names are not included in search criteria, or do we have to do some special to get them included?

LegacyUser

Paul said: Alternate Names are (last time I checked) always included in the FIND routine in Family Tree but are not taken into account in searches at https://www.familysearch.org/search/.

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: The backend for the historic records, genealogies and tree are all the same software.

All three search all of the name forms that are included in the Tree person or each person in a record.

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: Lyle,

Please include links to your searches and the people you are trying to find, and we can look at them.

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: From my experience, the alternate names are included for finding hints for a particular person. However, when you click the FamilySearch icon to search for a particular person, it fills out the form with the main name. You would have to manually enter the other names to search for records with those names. I think that is fine.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Lyle

Is this what you are talking about? I have just completed a search for my ancestor John Harrod, alternate name John Wall. His record appears at the top of the list when searching using either name. True, I have entered otherwise identical search criteria and there are many names that appear in a list beneath him (with the respective surnames) but exact matches are just prioritised, not exclusive to any list of results.

LegacyUser

Paul said: A search at https://www.familysearch.org/search/ does not work in this way. A search is only based on the record contents itself. Hence, entering "John Harrod" when searching for his christening will not produce the desired results, but a search using the name John Wall does find these records. As most experienced users know, alternate names are of no use outside of the Family Tree program.

LegacyUser

Lyle Clugg said: I guess I need to clarify which "search" I am talking about.

It is the "Search Records" feature on the right side of the person page. In my example, when I search for records for Eliza Jane Gagnon [9X2T-89N], I get records for Gagnon and similar names, but it doesn't include anything for her married name, Paquette. I'd like to see all alternate names included in the search, if that is possible. Ancestry.com appears to take all names into account.

LegacyUser

Lyle Clugg said: Also, I did just check the "Find" menu. It doesn't matter if I enter Eliza Jane Gagno, Eliza Jane Paquette or Elizabeth Gagneon, I always get the same results. I would like to see the same thing happen when I'm searching for historical records.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: If we fire off a search of Historical Records from a FS FT profile, there is no sign on the submitted search of the alternate names. I don't doubt that the backend is the same - it's feeding the backend with the alternate names where the problem starts.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I hope you don't mind me adding my example -
My great-gran 27HR-TN3 was born Mary Ellen Bates. She has an alternate married Name of Mary Ellen Bruce (now).

I fire off a search of the Historical Records from her profile - results are on https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...

There are 73,967 records returned (as of time of writing!). I can't see any Bruce responses but I didn't look very far! The thing is that I ran this search first, before adding her married name and got 73,967 records; added the married name and reran the search. I got the same number of records and the same URL was generated, indicating to me that a search of Historical Records from an FSFT profile doesn't use the alternate names.

To be quite honest - I don't actually expect it to use the alternate names - some profiles have so many alternate spellings and other alternate names that it would seem hugely difficult to search on them all in real time. Sometimes we have to do a bit of work and submit the extra names ourselves - that's fine by me. Background hinting is another matter.

(FYI - you may know Ancestry does search on both maiden and married name by sticking both surnames into the Last Name and doing a loose matching search - I'm not over fond of the process and it doesn't use any of the other possible alternate names - I think).

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: I now see that I misunderstood your request.

If a record has mulitple names on it, we will look for the search parameters in all of the names on the record.

You cannot yet provide multiple names to search in the records with. (I.E. Today, you cannot supply a US woman's married and maiden name in the same search. Right now, you have to do two searches to do that)

LegacyUser

Paul said: When you click on the FamilySearch logo whilst on a person page in Family Tree it takes you to a https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...? page.

I requested several years ago that there might be a "backward link" to Family Tree, whereby the results could include alternate names - whether a married name, an alias or whatever. I accepted the response, at the time, that this feature could not be implemented. I would still be surprised if it ever does materialise. I expect the whole search routine would have to be overhauled in order for this to be possible.

LegacyUser

Lyle Clugg said: Can we expect to see searching for multiple alternate names as a future enhancement? It doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to search for (Elizabeth Gagnon or Elizabeth Paquette) since the search already seems to include common alternate spellings, e.g. John and Jno or Joe and Joseph.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Lyle, Lindgren said that "If a record has multiple names on it, we will look for the search parameters in all of the names on the record." So the feature is already in place.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Actually Tom that's not how I read Lundgren's and Lyle's comments. (Restricting the topic to searches of Historical Records fired off from a Profile on FS FamilyTree)

Lundgren appears to have been saying that
(a) only one search is launched
(b) that there is only one name in that search but
(c) they'll look everywhere to find that one name.

So I think that if somehow the Name in Vitals is empty (which I have to say, I've never seen) but a name is in the Alternate Names, then the search will be launched once using that one name (from the Alternates).

Or am I misinterpreting what you are saying instead? Wouldn't be impossible for me to misunderstand.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Lyle - re searching for "Elizabeth Gagnon or Elizabeth Paquette"
Dangerous for me to speculate about how it all works but my impression is that variants such as Joe and Joseph are baked into the search routines at a very low level and so come up with one set of results, whereas "Gagnon or Paquette" would need to come in from the very top and would need to pick up two sets of results, not one. That's kinda just a gut feeling from me.

The other aspect is that Ancestry do have a search by alternate names facility so that Mary X marrying and becoming Mary Y can fire off a search to look for both Mary X and Mary Y in one go. The trouble is that it's a double edged sword because you get births and baptisms matching the married name and deaths matching the birth name - so it feels like 50% of the results are wrong. I'd rather repeat my search with the alternate names and perhaps other restrictions appropriate to dates.

In other words, I'm not thinking that it's likely in the forseeable future and I'm (based on my Ancestry experiences) not hopeful of getting useful results if they did do it.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Tom

I agree with Adrian's interpretation of Lundgren's comments. Try a search at familysearch.org for a name (say my example of John Harrod) and you certainly won't be presented with any John Wall results, just because he has that as an alternate name in Family Tree.

Of course Lyle's suggestion is of little use to a user who already knows the alternate name, but would be of great help to another user (researching the same line) in finding, say, the christening of an individual who appears under another name. Again, this would be conditional on having a good idea of where and when the event took place - as with my knowing John HARROD was born at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk around 1808 but NOT knowing he was christened as John WALL! If my alternate name input in Family Tree could be picked-up by a search at https://www.familysearch.org/search/ that could save someone with a common interest quite a lot of effort.

Can't see it happening, mind you, but a feature like this would certainly have its uses, as I believe Lyle is suggesting.

LegacyUser

Juli said: Let me see if I can get this all straightened out in my head by writing it down.

Let's consider LZL2-PSV. His name in vitals is (currently) Erik Weisz. He also has Harry Houdini as an alternate name.

If I go to Family Tree - Find and enter Harry Houdini as the search term, the first result is LZL2-PSV - disconcertingly (for me) labeled with his alternate name:



Schizophrenic appearances aside, the fact that alternate names are included in Find's "scope" means that I only need to do one search, and can find my person regardless of which name I know him by.

So now I've found my guy and have gone to his profile page. I want to see if there are more records about him, so I click the FamilySearch link at the right. This takes me to Records Search, with a bunch of fields pre-populated based on his profile. It only fills in one name, and it uses the one from Vitals, i.e. it does a Records Search for Erik Weisz.

I *think* what Lyle is asking is that it do a Records Search for _both_ Erik Weisz and Harry Houdini -- at the same time.

The main problem I see with this is also the reason I don't use that link: it either comes up with no results (because there are no indexed records that include all of that information in one entry), or it comes up with a jumble of mostly-wrong results, such as deaths for Erik Weisz or records where Erik Weisz is the father. Adding Harry Houdini to the mix would only make it worse: birth records for Harry Hodam or naturalizations for Harry Hudome, etc. He already has waaay more siblings in Family Tree than he actually had; an even bigger jumble of search results would not help any.

I use Records Search a lot. I never fill in even half as many fields as get populated by that link on the profile page. I just went through the first page of results for Houdini, and there's exactly one record out of a hundred -- 1% -- that's relevant and not already attached. I think I'll stick to my method, of manually filling in the search fields on Records Search.

LegacyUser

Lundgren said: Your observations are correct.

The reason it shows the alternate name is if it didn't show the name you searched for as a result then you would wonder why it showed a name that had nothing to do with your search. (That still does happen sometimes, we're working on a better solution for that still.)

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I agree with your analysis Juli. I also tend to agree with your distaste for launching a Historical Records search from the Tree profile. I don't get as many problems in such searches as you did here but that's probably because my FSFT profiles are more sparsely populated with data than HH. But certainly I have exactly that issue launching historical record searches from my Ancestry tree - I spend as long taking parameters out of the generated search to get manageable numbers of results as I have saved by not bringing up a new tab to do a clean search.

LegacyUser

Lyle Clugg said: Juli, you are correct in what I was looking for. I would like the search to include both Erik and Harry. I think your example is probably extreme. In most searches I do, I get one or two pages of results. I end up re-entering a second name and starting over. Most of the alternate names are the result of misspellings and poor handwriting by census takers or clerks misunderstanding what they heard.

It would be very helpful if the search could at least do both the maiden name and the married name(s), which would get most of the relevant records for a female.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Again, I would make the comment that it doesn't matter too much if you DO know the alternate name (aka, maiden, etc.) - just run one search on the "main" name and another on the alternate ("alternative" to those of us in the UK!).

It's for those users who DON'T KNOW the alternate name where this feature would be very useful. For example, I eventually discovered a relative is found as "Thomas Fawcett" in one census return and "Thomas Alderson" ten years later - then back to "Fawcett" again, ten years after that.

One way around this (but, I admit, a misuse of the facility) will be when we are able to amend indexed records. I understand the search will be made on both the indexed version of the name and the corrected one. I'm sure this is only supposed to be used in cases, for example, where the name was "John LathaN" but has been indexed as "John LathaM". But I'm sure some users will be tempted to add a completely different alternate name, so it will show-up in a search in the way you would wish!

LegacyUser

Paul said: Thinking further about this, I realised this would only "help" in locating an "aka" in the case of specific records where an alternate name had been inputted - so would not be of use in any general search at https://www.familysearch.org/search/ - as records for an individual that didn't have an alternate name attached would still remain "hidden".

LegacyUser

Juli said: Paul, it's a bit of chicken-and-egg, but for your Alderson versus Fawcett scenario, I suggest using Find instead of Search. It's certainly better suited to the purpose than index corrections.