I'm not sure what to do with the Unique Name suggestions I've received.

Question

I have quite a few "unique name" suggestions in my list: one is a prefix, a Japanese title; some are Native American names; some are variant spellings of surnames that are what I found in records.  I'm not sure what to do with them.  How does one determine the correct surname, for instance, when one hasn't yet found the family origin.  I've included one profile from the mix in my suggestions list.

Answer 1

The suggestions are based on how many times the name variant appears in the database - so names that are not common come up in the suggestions as a possible misspelling, so if you are aware of the reasoning behind the name either - something like not in one of the major (database) languages ie english/french/dutch etc but in a uncommon language then mark it as false or If it is a spelling variation that you intended to have on the profile - then again mark it as false.

Comments

The main purpose for the "unique names" feature is to help us detect simple mistakes, such as typographical errors.

Answer 2

Hi Lorraine. Of course if the suggestion is right and the "unique" names are misspelled, you would correct them.

But it is more often the case that such names are correct. If you have sources supporting these names, mark the suggestions false. For example, the second Ancestry image is a clear source for "King Stephen Pharoah". If you have a similarly strong source for "Taukus", that suggestion can be marked false.

If not, provided there is some evidence for "Taukus", what I would do is add a comment to the suggestion asking that it be left unchanged pending further research.

Comments

By the way, the second first Ancestry image is completely illegible on my screen, and no link to the record is provided. It's always worthwhile giving a link to the original Ancestry record, not just a sharing link. Ancestry seems to be making sharing link images much lower resolution than used to be the case.