Initials in Names–Whether It Is Nobler to Add a Period

To Period or Not To Period–THAT Is the Question.

With regard to Shakespeare ~ Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer Periods or No Periods in Names.

Did Shakespeare write about genealogy?
Okay, probably not and obviously certain “liberties” taken with the above.
Our instinct is to use periods such as J. J. Doe rather than J J Doe. In fact I can think of several teachers & professors in my life who would have not only marked the J J in red BUT taken off a few points for missing something so apparent. But this is not a term paper. What is the right thing to do in genealogy?Instructions during indexing of the 1940 census were to NOT to include periods after initials.

Several weeks ago I went through my two databases and removed EVERY period after an initial. Yes, I did some checking to see if this was proper before I did this and it seemed to be.

But before I wrote this post–which I intended to be published a week ago–I discovered multiple opinions on To Period or Not To Period.

• Thou shalt ALWAYS enter a period after an initial in your genealogy database.
• Thou shalt NOT ever enter a period after an initial…yada yada yada.
  [What DID we do before ‘yada yada’!!!]

What I Get To Do Over.

Yep! I get to add the periods back. BUT maybe not to ALL of the names.

When using initials, always include the period to distinguish from single character names, e.g. “Harry S Truman”.¹

And further explanation:

…an excellent example of why one should, in *most* instances, put a full stop after a single letter. Those “most cases” being when the single letter is, in fact, an abbreviation. Then when the single letter is *not* an abbreviation, as in the case of Harry S Truman and those German folk someone mentioned, the full stop is omitted and Legacy is told to ignore this “error.”
Provided one is consistent, it is then quite obvious which single letters are initials (perhaps full name is still unknown) and which are complete in themselves.²

Is This A Rule or a Guideline?

A Guideline.
I’m on the road right now and can’t check this in my resource books.  But the above makes sense. If the entry has no period initial, then it is not an abbreviation.

Consistency, Above All Consistency.

Genealogy is all about creating records.  Updating, expanding, exploring, discovering…find your own term…but note that no matter whether you “record” (now it’s a verb) it only in hard copy form or in a genealogy database, it is still a record.
[box type=”info”] Definition of RECORD … 1: to set down in writing : furnish written evidence of … 2: to give evidence of …

Source: Merriam-Webster

[/box] The more consistent you are the easier it is for you to search your own “stuff”.
Now what about others? Would you love to search someone’s records where names are in various forms–uppercase, lowercase. Sometimes you see the name in Firstname Lastname. Other times it’s the other way around. And of course that goes for dates as well. Varying formats, not always in the same place. Counties are sometimes listed without states. After all that person knows where his grandfather was born. Why bother writing down all that “stuff”.
Point made. Consistency is important. It gives meaning to data and frankly saves a lot of time on YOUR end whether you are searching your own data or someone else’s.

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Sources:
1. A user’s FAQ on Family Tree maker.
2. From a Legacy mail forum.