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Problem with Name order from GEDCOM file - Categorized in: Report a ProblemReport a Problem

3 posts. Started 6 Jan 2006 by kartiksubbarao. Latest reply 8 Jan 2006 by kartiksubbarao. RSS 2.0 feed for this topic RSS
1. Kartik Subbarao (kartiksubbarao)
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Joined: Fri, 6 Jan 2006
0 blog comments, 5 forum posts
Posted: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 Permalink
I have a GEDCOM file with names that have different orderings -- some names use a traditional ordering (Surname Middlename Givenname), and others use a modern ordering (Givenname Middlename Surname). For example:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Given1 Middle1 /Surname1/
2 GIVN Given1 Middle1
2 SURN Surname1
0 @I2@ INDI
1 NAME /Surname2/ Middle2 Given2
2 GIVN Given2 Middle2
2 SURN Surname2

For people like I2, Behold will print "For information about Surname2 Middle2, see ...". It looks like it is trying to parse everything up to the last word in NAME as a given name, instead of using the GIVN tag.

A simple solution would be not to even print the given name in this type of reference -- it's redundant, since the full name has just been printed. i.e. just go with ", see ...". That would also save an extra line which is critical for saving print space.

This type of ordering is very common for traditional Indian names, so I expect it will come up in many cases.
2. Louis Kessler (lkessler)
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Joined: Sun, 9 Mar 2003
287 blog comments, 245 forum posts
Posted: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 Permalink
Thank you for posting this.

I know there are other name variants, but I'm not familiar with them all and I haven't put specific coding into Behold to handle them yet. The GIVN and SURN tags are not used consistently among programs to properly define the name parts, but I should at some time put some code in to use them as best as I can to figure out the name parts. Maybe for Version 1.1.

In the case of your I2 example, would it be proper to refer to the person in a shortened form as: Surname2 Given2 (without the Middle2 name)?

But I really like your idea to get rid of the ", see ..." line and add it to the end of the previous line. Like you say, that will save space and avoid repetition. Sometimes the obvious things must be pointed out, because I completely missed that. I'll make that change for the next release.

Louis
3. Kartik Subbarao (kartiksubbarao)
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Joined: Fri, 6 Jan 2006
0 blog comments, 5 forum posts
Posted: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 Permalink
Thanks for the quick response. Surname2 Given2 would be okay as a shortened form of the I2 person. A further abbreviated form for these people would be S2 M2 Given2, where S2 is the initial of the surname, and M2 is the initial of the middle name.

Glad that I could provide a helpful suggestion :-) Good job on developing Behold. I like the concept and am looking forward to using it more.

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