Good suggestions, I get confused with so many George, William's and John's. I need them distinguished. It certainly helps. Gayle MattWard@aol.com wrote: > Having suscribed to this list serve for only a few days, I am being very > presumptious to be making suggestions, but there are some practices in use > here which are causing me some problems and can lead to mistakes being > repeated by many. Some of you may wish to add to this, but may I initiate it > with the following suggestions: > > 1. When listing a person whose name could be interpreted as male or female, > and there is no other accompanying information to clarify the gender, please > indicate in parenthesis the gender, if known. For example "Pat Kornegay" > could be male or female. If Pat married "George Hamilton Bishop", then I can > figure it out. But if Pat married "Bobbie Brooks"...Pat could be male and > Bobbie female, or vice versa. "Pat Kornegay (male) m. Bobbie Brooks" would > eliminate us creating and perpetuating a mistaken gender. > > 2. If the first name is known but not the last, type the first name followed > by some underlines: "Martha _______". Do not type "Martha???" This can be > misinterpreted as uncertainty as to the first name being "Martha". If the > last name is known, but not the first, type "______ Smith", if there is any > chance a reader might wonder whether this was a first name or last. For > example, "Mary Kornegay m. Patrick???". Did she marry a man whose first name > was Patrick and last name unknown, or whose last name might have been Patrick, > or what? "Mary m. _____ Patrick." is fairly clear that his last name was > Patrick, first name unknown. > > 3. Avoid mentioning several people in one paragraph and then using the a > pronoun such as "their, they, his, her". It can be unclear which of the > people you are referring back to. For example: > "I have found that John Jones married Christine Mayfield , daughter of James > Mayfield and Mary Smith. Maxfield Parrish married her sister, Janette. They > had two children, Glen and Sarah." > In the above paragraph, can you see how one might be confused as to whether > "They" refers to Maxfield and Janette or John and Christine? The initial > subjects of the paragraph were John and Christine, but the most recent > sentence was about Maxfield and Janette. Either intrepretation could be made. > And who is "her"? Did Maxfield marry Christine's sister or Mary Smith's > sister? Keep this potential ambiguity in mind when using pronouns. > 4. Tag your subject matter (in the "subject" field) with something > distinctive enough to help others recognize the specific area you are > addressing in your post, rather than titling it too broadly. For example, > Re: [KORNEGAY-L] Bibbs Co. AL > is much more useful than: > Re: [KORNEGAY-L] My branch > > ==== KORNEGAY Mailing List ====