Duplicate not found when only period on middle initial was different

Question

I created a duplicate Wilson-76542 for Ellen C. Wilson Young.  It was not until after the profile was created that I realized that there was already a profile for Ellen C Wilson (Wilson-31246) with same birth, death and married name.  I guess I missed the discussion about not using a period for the middle initial.  The profiles have been merged and updated, but it would not have happened if the first profile had come up as a match.  If this can't be fixed I am sure I will not be the last to make this mistake.  I just wanted to point it out.  My personal software comes up with a suggestion to add the period if it is not added for an initial.

Comments

Why would you not use the period with an initial? Isn’t it proper English?

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Because not using the full stop is called 'open punctuation' and is used throughout the world - except for the US.

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Why would you not use the period with an initial? Isn’t it proper English?

commented by George Fulton

It depends on your culture whether the fullstop is used or not.  I don't usually use one for my middle initial (signing my name is an exception).

There are many areas where the fullstop is used differently according to culture - Dr -  Mr  -  Mrs - being notable examples.

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Interesting ...

This particular profile is American, so using American English seems appropriate.

Answer 1

Hi Cherry,

Whatever caused the match not to come up, I don't think it has anything to do with the middle initial. It's only what you enter in the top section of the form, before where matches appear, that are used for matching.

In my testing, the match is coming up. (Actually, both the profiles are coming up, because the search index hasn't been updated.)

You could experiment at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:EditFamily to see what comes up and what doesn't based on what you enter.

It's possible that there was some temporary glitch that caused this.

Chris

Comments

Thanks for the answer.  I couldn't believe it when I found the other profile.  I couldn't see any difference except the period.  Anyway it is finished now with lots of sources.