Should we add more standard spellings along side unusual names?

Question

I have had a couple of incidences where I have entered a profile under the name as in the birth register (or transcript - which I know can be wrong). I have then had people standardise (one even snapped at me) that I had made a mistake.

As my own name is a non-standard spelling, I know how documents I have not filled out are seldom correct, is there a way to prevent unwelcome "corrections"? Maybe a tag indicating "Spelling as per earliest source"? I have added the ID of the latest one and you can see how I have handled it in the change history.

Lynlee (yes spelled correctly :) )

Comments

Do you mean something like,

Luxury-Yacht (Throatwarbler-Mangrove)?  

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Keep in mind that the concept of one correct spelling for a person's name  -- especially the given name -- dates to the 20th century at the earliest. In the 19th century, it didn't matter one whit whether the register said Elisabeth or Elizabeth (because she only answered to Bessie anyway).

Answer 1

I do that sometimes for first names with unusual spellings.  I set the prefered name as the more common spelling when creating the profile.  Several times doing so has resulted in me catching a duplicate profile for the same person. I find it very helpful.

Answer 2

In my opinion, it is useful to all researchers if we include any alternate spelling that we have encountered or that other researchers indicate to us may be the "correct" spelling. I believe that the Other Nicknames and Other Last Names fields style guidelines basically cover this concept.

Sometimes a researcher presumes the spelling if he/she only has heard the name, rather than having encountered it in a document.

For example, I always thought my grandfather's brother's name was Arlen or Arland, because that's how my mother pronounced it. One day, I asked her to spell the name and discovered it was Ireland!

The more information we provide, the easier it can be to find source documentation. Including alternate spellings in simply another basic research tool.