I was under the impression that names were entered using the last
element as this was generally the 'family' name. The names of many
gentry or noble families become compounded over the years through
marriage, and the last element is the most consistent and long-lived.
I can see why this has become a problem with ever-increasing on-line
research, but the thought of having to alter all my entries is horrifying!!!
Judith
On 10/09/2012 14:00, Jane Stevenson wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I would like to make a plea: can we consider a revision of the NCA Rules to stop what I think is a completely foolhardy practice of creating incorrect names?
>
> I am talking about the rules governing hyphenated and compound surnames. For reasons that I don't fully understand, a decision was taken to enter these under the 'last entry element'. What this effectively means is entering the name wrongly.
>
> E.g. Edith How-Martyn was a suffragette. I assume anyone looking her up or referring to her would reference her as 'How-Martyn'. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_How-Martyn)
>
> Similarly, we speak of 'Lloyd George' not 'George' when referring to David Lloyd George.
>
> But because our Archives Hub contributors are following NCA Rules when they catalogue, we get records for "Martyn Edith How, 1871-1944" or "Lewis, Cecil Day- (1904-1972) poet".
>
> This problem is compounded because we endeavour to structure name entries with 'surname', 'forename', 'dates', etc. The more structure the better, in general, but not if you are identifying the surname as 'Lewis' and the Forename as 'Cecil Day'.
>
> We've been thinking about name authorities, and we are part of the SNAC project to create EAC encoded name records out of EAD records (http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/), but we'll end up with a substantial number of wrongly created name entries as a result of this rule. This practice also flies in the face of the general move towards data mining and pattern matching that is helping many information communities to improve the utility of their data.
>
> For example, if we want to match up the entries for the archival creator (free text entries) and the entries of their name as an index term (structured entries), it is somewhat more difficult to match "Edith How Martyn" as the creator and "Martyn, Edith How" as the index entry. Its not impossible, but it just adds to the complexity that is already involved in trying to make names machine readable and create 'same as' links.
>
> I'd be really very interested to hear what others have to say about this. I feel that the rules were created when cross-referencing was commonplace, but now what is important is to have well-structured machine readable data.
>
> cheers,
> Jane.
>
>
> Jane Stevenson
> The Archives Hub
> Mimas, The University of Manchester
> Devonshire House, Oxford Road
> Manchester M13 9QH
>
> email:[log in to unmask]
> tel: 0161 275 6055
> website: archiveshub.ac.uk
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>
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..................................................
Judith Curthoys, MSt, DAA
Archivist
Christ Church, Oxford, OX1 1DP
01865 276171
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'The Cardinal's College: Christ Church Chapter and Verse' was published in March 2012. This is the first new full history of Christ Church since Henry Thompson's 1900 contribution to the College Histories series. Drawing heavily on the material in the college and cathedral archives, the book is an account of the foundation, the administration, the teaching, and the lives of the scholars who have lived and worked at Christ Church. 'The Cardinal's College' is available through selected bookshops, on Amazon, and through the college's website: www.chch.ox.ac.uk
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