Possible new bug in variant surname searching

Question

Based on something Jaki Erdoes reported here, I've done some experiments.

If using "yes, include both first & last name variants" at

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:SearchPerson

I search for Frederick Osborn, there are 56 results: 55 Osborn, plus one Osborne at the end. A search for Frederick Osborne gives 97 results: 95 Osborne, one Gooch with OLN Osborne, and just one Osborn, also at the end.

Similarly, searching for Ralph Paterson gives only 7 results, all Paterson, even though

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/PATERSON

says Patterson is a related name.

Has variant surname searching broken down, or am I making some silly mistake?

Edited to add sysops tag.

Comments

As Jaki pointed out, if this bug is real, searches to avoid duplicates will be failing. That would have serious consequences. Could other people reading this please do further experiments to see if they can confirm or not?

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I just started creation for Ralph Patterson born 1839. It says there are no matches, even though a Ralph Paterson born 1839 exists. (It does find the match if I enter Ralph Paterson.) Looks as if not only search but match checking may be broken. Maybe we should pause profile creation—unless, as I said, other people can't reproduce it and I'm wrong somehow.

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I did a quick test and got the same results as you. For the Frederick Osborn case I also tried entering a birth year (with a +/-12 year range), a birth country and changing the variants to "include last name variants, only exact first name variants", but it still has exactly the same problem.

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Thanks very much, Paul. Good to know I'm not imagining it.

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I had the same result Friday, I believe. Searched a name with no resulting matches. But during profile creation 5 or 6 good possibles came up.

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Thanks Kristina. Then it may not be as new as I thought.

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Just double checked using variants on first and last name for William Dods. A profile I created several years ago.

I get 4 William Dods, none for William Dodds which should show up as a variant.

Then searched for William Dodds variants on first and last name. I get 19 possible matches, 18 are for William Dodds and the last one is for a William Dods who was also on the results for "Dods", the other 3 William Dods that were on the 'Dods' and variants results are not on the Dodds and variants results.

I did not enter any dates, or birthplace just death in Canada.

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Thank you for the additional tests, M. They seem to fit the same pattern. I just retried my "Ralph Paterson" search, and still get 7 Patersons and no Pattersons.

Jamie Nelson is aware of the issue.

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Both the Ralph Paterson search bug and the Ralph Patterson 1839 match detection failure are still happening on 7 February 2024. See also

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1701433/serious-category-content-variant-surname-duplicate-detection

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The two bugs are now fixed. See this thread.

Answer 1

Is anyone working on a fix?  I am hesitant to add any more profiles at all. This is really discouraging.

Comments

Hi Jaki. See Jamie Nelson's answer at this link. At 1230 pm UTC on Monday 24 February 2024, both the variant surname search bug (3) and the duplicate detection failure (4) are still present.