* Overriding ":REVERSE" in a bibliography

[Gary_G]

In a bibliography, peoples names are typically shown with the last name first and terminated by a period.
eg. "White, George."

However; the names of some organizations should not be reversed.
Is there a way, in FH7, to mark a name in a template field to ensure it is not reversed?

I've tried using the slashes, but this tends to introduce a trailing comma.
eg. "Alabama, Chambers County,."

[I should note that I've seen this behaviour in other genealogical programs, so it's not peculiar to FH7.]

[tatewise]

In a bibliography, peoples names are typically shown with the last name first and terminated by a period.
eg. "White, George."

That is not my experience. The default is given names and surname without any period.
If there is a Name type field Principal holding George James /White/ I get the following effects:
{Principal} displays George James White
{Principal:REVERSE} displays White, George James
{Principal:GIVEN} displays George James
{Principal:SURNAME} displays White
e.g.
Bibliography format template holds {Principal} {Principal:REVERSE} {Principal:GIVEN} {Principal:SURNAME}

Please post your Name field contents, Bibliography format template, and Bibliography citation text.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mike, I suspect we're talking about authors here, not Principals. In which case. Gary is right. Strathclyde says

Where the author is a person then the name is given as surname followed by given name.

Macdonald, Ian G.; Macdonald, Ian G.. Referencing for Genealogists (p. 31). The History Press. Kindle Edition.

Whereas for an organisation as author, you wouldn't do that.

[tatewise]

IMO Names should always be entered in Name fields using the FH/GEDCOM convention Given /Surname/
Then the template formats can decide whether default normal order or :REVERSE order is needed in the citation.

It should all become clear if Gary posts some example Name data and the Bibliography format template.
Giving examples of problems is always the quickest way to resolving them.

[ColeValleyGirl]

You're missing the point, Mike. Given that certain citation styles require the author field to be displayed as 'Surname, Forename.' if it's a personal author and 'Organisation.' if it's an Organisational Author, your opinion about how personal names should be entered isn't a lot of help.

Example Author names:

"T. William Olle, Jacques Hagelstein, Ian G. Macdonald, Collette Rolland, Henk G. Sol, Frans J.M. Van Assche and Alexander A. Verrijn-Stuart"

Should be displayed as "Olle, T. William, Jacques Hagelstein, Ian G. Macdonald, Collette Rolland, Henk G. Sol, Frans J.M. Van Assche and Alexander A. Verrijn-Stuart." (Only the first name is reversed)

"Fred Bloggs"

Should be displayed as 'Bloggs, Fred."

"National Archives (Great Britain)"

Should be displayed as "National Archives (Great Britain)."

I can't see any way other of handling this at present other than entering the Author as it should be displayed, not as it is... So Fred Bloggs would be entered as Bloggs, Fred.

[Mark1834]

IMO Names should always be entered in Name fields using the FH/GEDCOM convention Given /Surname/

AFAIK, it's also factually incorrect. All I could find in GEDCOM 5.5.1 is The name value is formed in the manner the name is normally spoken, with the given name and family name (surname) separated by slashes (/). FH also appears to be agnostic about whether names are entered given-first or surname-first.

It may well be your personal preference, but is it an FH/GEDCOM convention? GEDCOM 5.5.1 seems to be written very much with multiple name styles in mind.

[ColeValleyGirl]

I can't see any way other of handling this at present other than entering the Author as it should be displayed, not as it is... So Fred Bloggs would be entered as Bloggs, Fred.

I can't remember (Gary_G will know) if there's a requirement for the names to be handled in different ways in e.g. a footnote and a bibliography. If there is, my suggestion won't work.

In any case, I can't see a way to handle the case of multiple authors simply. If I want to cite

Wrigley E.A. and R.S. Schofield. 1981. The Population History of England 1541-1871. London: Edward Arnold

I'm not sure there's any way FH could create that author string if I didn't enter it that way.

[Gary_G]

As Helen has correctly stated;

"Fred Bloggs"
Should be displayed as 'Bloggs, Fred."

"National Archives (Great Britain)"
Should be displayed as "National Archives (Great Britain)."

Also; while "author" names are not reversed in Footnotes, the initial name is reversed in the bibliography. There are other associated rules for multiple authors and names beginning with articles, but these are not germane to the question I posted.

This bibliographic convention is present, not only in the Strathclyde style, but also in Evidence Explained.
While many do not agree with the overall style Evidence Explained, it does reflect common practices in the publishing industry standards.

Furthermore; how the developers of the GEDCOM standard chose to represent names is quite irrelevant. That standard was intended as a method to capture genealogical info and not to drive the way information was typically represented in documents. If it's the reason why FH7 can't represent a bibliography per industry standards, then perhaps the GEDCOM standard needs to be updated; not the other way 'round.

[ColeValleyGirl]

IMO Names should always be entered in Name fields using the FH/GEDCOM convention Given /Surname/

AFAIK, it's also factually incorrect. All I could find in GEDCOM 5.5.1 is The name value is formed in the manner the name is normally spoken, with the given name and family name (surname) separated by slashes (/). FH also appears to be agnostic about whether names are entered given-first or surname-first.

It may well be your personal preference, but is it an FH/GEDCOM convention?

It can't be. Swathes of the world by convention put the family name before the personal name. Or are mononymic.

[Gary_G]

The only way I can see to ensure the correct order and punctuation for the "author(s)" is to employ the "Section" or "TextPart" functions to deconstruct the content of a text field using comma delimiters and reconstruct it per publishing standards.

This is because (beyond the names of organizations) that field could contain one or more names. In the footnotes, this poses no issues. In the bibliography, only the first name is reversed. If it is the only author, it just ends in a period.

However.... If there are several authors, the first one is reversed and the whole series of names ends in a period.
Eg.

McWhiney, Grady, and Forrest McDonald. “The South from Self-Sufficiency to Peonage: An Interpretation,” American Historical Review 85 (December 1980): 1095–1108.

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace: 3rd edition revised (p. 68). Genealogical Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

So; my proposed solution feels like "killing flies with a baseball bat", but it may be the only way...

[AdrianBruce]

The crux of the matter is surely that organisation names appearing in a :REVERSE "author" item get treated as if they were a human name. In other words, "Great Western Railway" gets shown (by default) as "Railway, Great Western". Which isn't the end of the world in that case but shouldn't be so.

I tried various things such as non-breaking spaces or putting // around the whole of "Great Western Railway", but the best I could come up with had the extraneous terminating comma that Gary refers to e.g.

Code: Select all

[b]Bibliography[/b]
Great Western Railway,. Swindon Works. Oxford: OUP, 2001.

[tatewise]

In my defence m'lord, the OP said nothing about Strathclyde format or the Source generic Author field.
So when names were mentioned I assumed templated Name type fields were being discussed, especially as the :REVERSE qualifier was mentioned which only applies to Name type fields.

As I said, if an example had been posted that would all have become much clearer much sooner.

The Author field is a plain text field, so the only reordering that might be possible would involve using the functions =TextPart(...) or =Section(...) but will require comma or other separator characters to delineate the parts/sections.

If you want the full flexibility of Name formatting in citations then a Name type template field is required.

[Gary_G]

Adrian;
Yes that was what I tried and found the same result. This also occurs in other products than FH7. It appears to have been caused by the structure of the GEDCOM standard on which many apps are grounded.

I updated my previous post and wonder if one could solve the issue as I noted therein.

As this issue is a very common one for most genealogical apps that I've used, I'm a bit surprised that a more-or-less standard solution hasn't been developed by someone. Guess that I'll have to give it a go and see if I can develop some "formula" that works...

[ColeValleyGirl]

This is because (beyond the names of organizations) that field could contain one or more names. In the footnotes, this poses no issues. In the bibliography, only the first name is reversed. If it is the only author, it just ends in a period.

I feared that might be the case.

[ColeValleyGirl]

In my defence m'lord, the OP said nothing about Strathclyde format or the Source generic Author field.

Sorry, Mike. I assumed the reference to an organisation made it clear.

[tatewise]

The crux of the matter is surely that organisation names appearing in a :REVERSE "author" item get treated as if they were a human name. In other words, "Great Western Railway" gets shown (by default) as "Railway, Great Western". Which isn't the end of the world in that case but shouldn't be so.

I tried various things such as non-breaking spaces or putting // around the whole of "Great Western Railway", but the best I could come up with had the extraneous terminating comma that Gary refers to e.g.

Code: Select all

[b]Bibliography[/b]
Great Western Railway,. Swindon Works. Oxford: OUP, 2001.

I think you are talking about Name type fields, which I've just been shot down for discussing.
If you used the template {Principal:SURNAME}<, {Principal:GIVEN}> then using /Great Western Railway/ works fine as well as John /Smith/.

I don't see why an organisation Name in a template field would not work just fine.
The problem is trying to make a generic Author text field perform too many roles.

[AdrianBruce]

Gary - I'm getting further tied in knots considering how to process multiple authors. If I enter the "author" as "George Jackson Churchward and Charles Collett" then, as you will guess, the default Bibliography (with Reversed Author) appears as "Collett, George Jackson Churchward and Charles". Yuk!

If it was me (and it's not) then right now I'd contemplate cutting my losses and having two Author items. One Author-Reversed and the other Author - the latter is plain English, to be used wherever I need it. The former is a text item showing the "Author" in whatever format I want for when Bibliography rules say it's supposed to be reversed. However, I just write it in, I don't use :REVERSE.

Yes, I hate duplication. But I also hate how "George Jackson Churchward and Charles Collett" ends up as "Collett, George Jackson Churchward and Charles".

Not nice... Am I in too deep to see a solution? (not that I need one given that I'm not a template user)

[Gary_G]

Mike;

I think that one may have to use a text field and parse it to get a robust solution, since there could be multiple names.

[Gary_G]

Adrian;
Yes; sometimes the publication standard formats do look a bit "wierd". I, too, dislike multiple fields for the same data. I "think" I can get the proper representation, but it will take a bit of trial-and-error.

[AdrianBruce]

...
If you used the template {Principal:SURNAME}<, {Principal:GIVEN}> then using /Great Western Railway/ works fine as well as John /Smith/. ...

Yes, that might well work where just one name is involved. It requires forgetting about :REVERSE which might be thought perverse. (sorry!)

...
The problem is trying to make a generic Author text field perform too many roles.

I wouldn't disagree - the trouble is the bog standard "author" is just a bit too obvious.

[tatewise]

As Adrian suggested, it may need two fields.
1) a Name type template field for the 1st author that supports the :GIVEN and :SURNAME qualifiers.
2) a Text type template field for any other authors.

Then I think a Footnote template and a Bibliography template would be straightforward.
e.g.
Footnote: {Author1}<, {Author2}>
Bibiography: {Author1:SURNAME}<, {Author1:GIVEN}><, {Author2}>

[Gary_G]

Mike;

I was thinking about the complexity of using a single text field and I tend to agree that two fields is worth a try. While two fields is less appealing in a template, the complexity of the code underlying using a single text field is substantial.

I think I might try using the GIVEN_ALL qualifier in your example.
It should ensure that I captured all of the rest of the name.
Make sense?

[Gary_G]

I tried my suggested variation on Mike's suggestion. Looks like the issue is solved!

Footnotes: used <{Main_Author}<, {Additional_Author_s}>>,
Bibliography: used <<{Main_Author:SURNAME}<, {%SOUR.~NM-MAIN_AUTHOR:GIVEN_ALL%}><, {Additional_Author_s}>.>

It results in the following...

Footnote
George White, John Doe, Jane Doe et al.

Short Footnote
George White , John Doe, Jane Doe et al.

Bibliography
White, George, John Doe, Jane Doe et al..

and, for a corporate author... [Main author typed as "/Library and Archives Canada/"]

Footnote
Library and Archives Canada, John Doe, Jane Doe et. al.

Short Footnote
Library and Archives Canada, John Doe, Jane Doe et. al.

Bibliography
Library and Archives Canada, John Doe, Jane Doe et. al..

[tatewise]

No, you cannot use the :GIVEN_ALL qualifier because that is not supported by template Name type fields.

Only the :GIVEN qualifier is allowed on template Name fields as specified in the Source Template Formats help.
However, it acts the same as :GIVEN_ALL and lists everything except the /Surname/.

I am rather annoyed with CP at that inconsistency.
All the Name type fields, whether in Individual records or as template fields, should support consistent qualifiers.
Ideally, template Name fields should support all the qualifiers defined in the Name Formats help, but do not.
If only a subset is supported, as currently, then they should be syntactically and semantically equivalent.
End of rant.

P.S.
I was posting this as you posted your solution which is over complex. Just use {Main_Author:GIVEN}

[Gary_G]

Mike;

Just digesting your "rant"...

Was your point that, while it obviously works in my tests, CP should not have permitted it?
I've no issues with using just "GIVEN", provided it reliably picks up everything but the surname.
If CP has not applied the qualifiers consistently, I hope something doesn't "break" if they fix the issue.