GENBOX-L Archives

Archiver > GENBOX > 2003-10 > 1067039296


From: "Paul J. Harris" <>
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] Controlling Author Output
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 19:48:22 -0400
In-Reply-To: <CHEMKKAJHOKJPIEOPLKDEEEIELAA.clcasper@sprynet.com>


Cheri,

Perhaps this would be the best route to go. I'm not sure of what Bill's
strategy is going to be, but it seems to me at one point he was suggesting
entering authors' names into separate fields to give him OR us more control.
Perhaps simply delineating author surnames with slashes, as we do Individual
Identifiers, would help. I think that I tend to agree with you that having
the option of the differentiating variables would be more controllable.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Cheri Casper [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 6:26 PM
To:
Subject: RE: [GENBOX] Controlling Author Output


Paul - I would vote for new formatting variables that would allow for output
of full name, last name, full inverted. This would be useful when you have
beaucoup Anderson authors and need to have the full name output in the
Secondary Citation for clarity.

CheriC

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul J. Harris [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 1:17 PM
To:
Subject: [GENBOX] Controlling Author Output


Bill, et al,

I know there are still some current issues in dealing with multiple authors
for output, but I have come up with a dilemma with just one author. If any
Author Type other than Agency is selected, the Author's name is
automatically controlled as follows:

First Citation

FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME

Secondary Citation

LASTNAME

Bibliography

LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME

This is appropriate for almost every situation EXCEPT in the case of a
letter. With a letter, we need:

First Citation

FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME

Secondary Citation

FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME

Bibliography

LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME

Example of current output:

First Citation

Letter from Paul Joseph Harris (2684 Hibbert Avenue, Columbus, OH) to Joseph
Hastings Harris, 09 February 1932; held in 2003 by Paul J. Harris, Jr.,
personal collection (4009 Stemmons Court; Raleigh, NC 27613.)

Secondary Citation

Letter, Harris to Joseph Hastings Harris, 09 February 1932.

Bibliography

Harris, Paul Joseph, letter. 09 February 1932, from 2684 Hibbert Avenue,
Columbus, OH, to Joseph Hastings Harris. Held in 2003 by Paul J. Harris,
Jr., personal collection; 4009 Stemmons Court; Raleigh, NC 27613.

In the Secondary Citation only the last name of the author is output. This
is fine for a published work easily found in a bibliography, but how many
Harris authors do I have in my sources? Plenty. Additionally, Mills' format
suggests repeating the full name of the letter writer in the secondary
citation. I think we can all see the need and benefit of doing so.

The only question I have is HOW to do it in Genbox. Does anyone know a way,
other than using a data field other than Author? Could this possible suggest
the need for another Author TYPE? Perhaps 'Letter Writer,' 'Correspondent,'
or 'Full Name' could be an additional type that would not abbreviate the
author in secondary citations. Alternatively, additional codes such as
[AUTHOR], [AUTHOR INV], & [AUTHOR LAST] instead of the current autoformating
would solve the problem.

What do others think?

Paul


==== GENBOX Mailing List ====
To join this list, send an email to with the
word "subscribe" as the subject line. Then email your messages to
and they will appear on this list.

==============================
To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go
to:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237



==== GENBOX Mailing List ====
To join this list, send an email to with the
word "subscribe" as the subject line. Then email your messages to
and they will appear on this list.

==============================
To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go
to:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237

This thread: