Allow italics or bold in name fields

LegacyUser

Linda Barney said: It is traditional in German and Swedish naming that 3-4 first names are given at birth and one of those is the name that they use and are known by. It would be really useful if there were a way to indicate the name that they are known by in the main name field. In Swedish texts the used name is indicated by having it in italics. I would like to show the same thing in FS, but it isn't currently allowed.

LegacyUser

Juli said: FamilySearch has had several episodes where plain text fields were suddenly being parsed as code, resulting in loss of all white space (line breaks) and other Bad Things. I shudder to think what would happen if they tried to add formatting (rich text) to the equation. Let's just leave text as plain text, please?

My preferred way of dealing with multiple given names versus use names is to only put the name(s) the person actually used in the Vitals name box. The "whole-shebang-name" goes under Other Information - Alternate Name, as a Birth Name, since that's really what it is.

Another option is to put the whole shebang under Vitals, and the use name as an alternate, but none of the options clearly fit the idea of "preferred name". ("Nickname" comes closest, but really isn't it.) Hence my preference, above.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Linda,

Juli's suggestion is really the correct way to handle this. The use of font specific controls like bold and italic have not been around for a long time and were obviously never in original records which were recorded by hand or typed on a typewriter. So you can't really imply that the use of bold or italic in names is any kind of standard.

The name field is for the most common name that they were identified with. Other variations and alternates should be recorded as Alternate names. Note that regardless of where you put the name, the search engines look at both the name field and the alternate names fields

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: According to the instructions (see article at https://www.familysearch.org/help/hel...), "In the Vitals section, enter the person’s birth name or complete legal name."

The article provides additional information about entering names.

We should represent the birth name as it is recorded in the original records, not a typeset text, such as that which you mentioned.

If the birth name is recorded in the vitals section, then any name, such as the name the person commonly used, should be recorded as an "Also Known As" alternative name in the other section.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I think that the best way forward would be Juli's "Another option is to put the whole shebang under Vitals, and the use name as an alternate", which appears to be what Tom describes. The issue with that is, as Juli says, that none of the labels available to the alternates really describe what we're talking about.

What I would like to add is that one good reason that I prefer that method is that the full name tends to be easier to discover than any "given name used" / "use name". Therefore the full name is built on more solid evidence and is thus better to go in as the "primary" name. The fact that it's less volatile might also help (what happens to the records if the name changes after LDS ordinances have been done? As a non-member, I've no idea...)

For instance, a friend of mine was registered as "John Graham" and known by his family as "Graham". But for various reasons, when he went away to work, people picked up on "John" so that's now the name he's known by.

Not only is the full name easier to discover, even when people discover alternatives used, there may be debate over whether the alternative is a genuine "given name used". For another instance, one of my great-uncles was registered as "Charles Edward" and known as "Ted". My immediate inclination, like many of us, I suspect, is to record "Ted" as a nickname. Does that mean his "given name used" is "Edward"? I don't know and if I don't, what chance has anyone else got....? That's why I'd prefer to "put the whole shebang under Vitals" - easier to discover, no arguments over significance or volatility.