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Archiver > APG > 2002-09 > 1032156564


From: Joan Lowrey <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Indexing Females
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 23:11:20 -0700
In-Reply-To: <002301c25d24$ffcc7370$55159541@1pka7>


Here's how I indexed Verla, born Gardner, who married four times, and one
of her sons who was born to Mr. Allers, but when she married Mr. Clary, was
known as Clary:

Allers
Daniel James, 58, 61, 63, 64, 286, 295, 395. See also Clary, Daniel Allers
Verla (Gardner,) 61, 64, 70, 286, 395. See also under Gardner; Wright; Clary;
Gilbert

The question that I wrestled with in creating this index was: Do I index a
woman according to the name she had at the time she is mentioned, or do I
lump all her pages and all her names into one index entry? I decided to
index her separately according to the name she had at that time, with "see"
references to her other names. For example, everything about her when she
was Verla Gardner was under Gardner, Verla. When she married Mr. Wright,
then those pages were under Wright, Verla (Gardner). Etc. I felt that this
better served the reader who might want to read about her during a certain
part of her life. Otherwise the reader would have had to check out maybe 20
or so page references that had nothing to do with the time period of interest.

Another question I had trouble with was: What do you do when she is
referred to as "Sis" or Grandma'' or some other such term, but her name
does not appear on the page. When looking for names on a page, you expect
to see that name.

Joan N. Lowrey
La Jolla, CA

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