Lots of discussion on Unknown Names. Each of us needs to determine how WE hand to handle Unknown Surnames and unknown Given Names. Here is my experience and why I have chosen how I handle these two situations. For unknown Given Names, I use 5 underscores For unknown Surnames, I use 5 underscores Two reasons. 1) readers of a report or chart, love to help me out by "filling in the blanks". 2) using the Web Search workspace, the fields are filled in, in the manner that Ancestry.com's will accept and provide appropriate results. Those two reasons have worked for me for years. Look at the list of Surnames, If you don't use that, then other ways may work for you. At a glance, I know how many surnames I am missing. If I am reading a report, I don't miss that fact that I am missing a name with the other options that have been suggested. I really don't care, but I find the Output from my work a little more readable and someone not familiar with genealogy or the report will quickly understand that I don't know that name. I don't include some relationship indication with the unknown name because the chart or report will show me that relationship. When I tried to determine how I wanted to handle Unknown Names or any other change in my database, I check input AND output. At the top of the People Workspace, Tree View, I have a list of unknown names, Surnames and Given Names. IF I want to work on one of them, I can always select that name and see the relationship. I don't search from that point. But when I see a Shaky Leaf by one of those unknown names, they are really good hints. That hint may not be the Surname, but those HINTS HAVE, in fact, helped me identify the name of that unknown named person. As I said earlier, the Web Search workspace form is filled in, with the 5 underscores AND does provide valid results. I rarely put any other information into that search form but get results. So, the Easy to spot people, the readability of charts and reports, the Web Search feature is the reason that I use 5 underscores. I chose 5 because I didn't want to make it so obvious that I didn't know the name, that it might have a negative impact to the reader, but I want it to be a gentle reminder that I have work to do. One final "naming" thing. I do NOT use Married names for females. I am consistent in my naming convention. If I don't know that married females birth surname, 5 underscores. One users opinion. Russ ___________________________ Mailto:rworthington@att.net