Ancestors who go by their middle name?

Question

I just entered in a relative who went by his middle name. I put his middle name as his prefered name and now it's showing his preferd name with his middle intial. I'm afraid this will confuse someone. Is there a way to show their first name as an intial instead instead of having the middle name represented twice?

Answer 1

Hi Cynthia,

I'm afraid this does cause a little bit of a problem.

The basic answer is to do what you did, to put the Middle Name as the Preferred First Name. However, there will be a few contexts in which the Preferred First Name is combined with a middle initial. For example, if your name is Cynthia Jane Beilmann but you go by Jane, there will be a couple situations were "Jane J. Beilmann" appears.

To see all the contexts, to help you make your decision on name fields, see the "view name displays" link near the top of the edit page. It will take you to a page like this: http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Whitten-30/1001

Chris

Answer 2

Cynthia:

I'm not certain that I clearly understand your problem, but let me say this:

Once a Profile is entered and saved, you should be able to make the changes you want from that Profile's edit tab. (near the top of the Profile).  You can enter or edit the formal name, preferred name, nickname, etc - and any of these can be represented by an initial.  BUT REMEMBER  to SAVE your changes (click on the "save changes" button) BEFORE leaving that page.

Hope this helps.

Keith Baker