Thanks for the helpful suggestions regarding finding people whose surnames are blank in the FTM database and how to keep that from happening in the first place. I spent about three hours going through the 7000-person index of my ftm file looking for people's names displayed without a comma, as BJ suggested. When I found one, I filled in the blank surname with the character string Unknownlastname. I intend to go back and alter those people's first names to follow the convention suggested by Ian, BJ, and others to include information such as (wife of John Smith). I then used the following technique to determine whether I had found all the people with blank surnames: - use the File/Export function to create a GEDCOM file of all individuals. - open the GEDCOM file with a text-reading program such as Notepad. - search for the 3-character string between the quotes "^//". (Here I am using ^ to indicate a blank space.) In my case I found five people whom I had missed when I went through the index looking for names without a comma. As an aside, you might be interested in the reason I had so many blank surnames. Years ago about the time I started using FTM 5, I read somewhere that one should insert // when the surname was not known. I have long since gotten away from that convention, but until yesterday I had not corrected for it. As another aside, the GEDCOM file can also be used to find people with blank given names. Search using the 7-character string between the quotes "^NAME^/". Once again I've used ^ to indicate a blank space. Thanks again for all the help, Jim Hoke ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:50:42 -0700 From: BJ <oldtrails@gmx.com> Subject: Re: [FTM-TECH] Searching for blank surnames To: ftm-tech@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <54EBE702.4010502@gmx.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Good question. There is no easy way of filtering for individuals with no surname. The only thing I can suggest is using the Index on the People/Tree work area. Set the Sort to Surname, Given name. Then you can manually review the index looking for all names displayed without the comma. E.g. Most names with surnames will be displayed as Barber, James People without surnames will be displayed as James Sorry I can't be of more help. But you should be able to scroll the list fairly quickly. Another work around which would allow you to filter the individuals with no surnames is: When entering a name with no surname, always enter a unique character for the surname. Some people use a question mark (?). I use 10 underscores to indicate unknown information whether it is the surname or the given name. E.g. James ? James __________ __________ Barber You can then filter for the unique character/s. BJ ------------------------------ From: Jim Hoke [mailto:j12251225@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, February 23, 2015 9:44 AM To: FTM-TECH mailing list submission Subject: Searching for blank surnames BJ, Your comment in The Great Debate about FTM 2014's handling of people's names triggered me to wonder how one can search on surname. Specifically, my question is how does one find all the people in an ftm file for whom the surname is blank (that is, it has not been entered)? I've searched without luck the FTM-TECH archives for an answer. Thanks for the help, Jim Hoke ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2015 16:58:48 -0700 From: BJ <oldtrails@gmx.com> Subject: Re: [FTM-TECH] Fact Notes and Names - (was The Great Debate) To: ftm-tech@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <54EA6D38.7050907@gmx.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Thanks for the comments. I see some have replied to your message but to add my 2cents worth, please see my comments interspersed below. BJ . > 3. Split the NAME field into FIRST, MIDDLE, LAST, PREFIX and SUFFIX. I like to be able to see titles (Captain) and it helps with reports, especially when some people do not have all parts of their names identified. As has been pointed out this feature was implemented beginning with FTM 2008 but not exactly as you describe. While the name is displayed as one continuous name, it actually consists of three fields; Given Names, Surname and Suffix. . ------------------------------