Janice:
You always make me think<g>! My 2 cents...
It was not uncommon during this time period for given names to be quite lengthy. I have
one entire family in rural Kentucky where the male and female children all had at least 5
names.
I have not seen this certificate. If this certificate shows a hyphenated name, we can
certainly accommodate that. The surname fields are set up to accept apostrophes, hyphens
and spaces in addition to alphabetic characters.
That said, if the certificate does not show a hyphen, the surname would simply show as
Colins. I hesitate to try interpret circumstances except in unusual cases because we just
don't have much to go on. The fact that the father's surname is shown as Turner
will help researchers find this person.
I would enter into the given name field:
james k polk turner
and into the surname field:
colins
As Janice stated, we're open for discussion!
--Sheryl Slaughter
Kentucky Vital Records Project Coordinator
Plusss(a)aol.com wrote:
I'd like to ask the opinion of the list members in regard to the handling of
this certificate. It has already been transcribed and proofed, and I
happened upon it by accident.
The facts are that the deceased was a black male, born before the Civil War,
father's name known but not mother's name (by the person giving the evidence
for the record).
The deceased is listed on the certificate as James K Polk Turner Colins.
All names have apparently been entered at the same time, so this is not a case
of additional material being entered at a later date.
The father's surname is Turner, so we have 3 choices for the source of
Colins.
a. the mother's surname having been added to Turner, but not realized by the
informant
b. the name of the deceased's wife, added to the paternal surname but
nothing showing on the certificate to support this
c. the name of a family lived with, if the deceased was held as a slave
during part of his lifetime
We would record this information because that is what we do - transfer data
as it is, to the researcher. However, my instincts tell me that people are
not likely to search for this person under the name Turner-Colins. At the
moment, the name is shown under the arrangement picked up from the KDI database,
Turner Colins, all on the same surname field.
I am going to change the entry to the following: Turner as
PrincipalSurname1, Colins as PrincipalSurname2. Research on the Colins name would bring up
this individual as well.
Does this cover the existing conditions as far as everyone is concerned?
Comments are welcome, since everyone here realizes that we are not a forum
for political and social comment.
Janice Armstrong
Asst. Coordinator, KYVitals
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