lchoqu wrote:sbradshaw wrote:I would love to think that maybe someday someone in Russia (who will have an advantage in researching that branch of the family) would start working on their family history and connect their work into my section of the tree (which they'll only be able to do if they can find the person's name).
I would love to think so too. That's why I'm leaning toward the first bullet point I listed, although I would hope that alternate names also show up in searches.
When you enter a name in FamilySearch, you specify the language, and then you fill in each of the scripts that are included with that language. For each script, there are multiple name parts (title, given name, surname, suffix -- although not all scripts include all 4 possible name parts). I don't think your first bullet point option ("the main name at the top of the entry in both Cyrillic and Roman") is a good idea. I say this because there's no good way to enter Cyrillic and Roman names into just the Roman name parts. That would require you to enter the first name as something like "Пётр Ильич or Pyotr Ilich" and the last name like "Чайкoвский or Tchaikovsky"; that would then be displayed in many places as "Пётр Ильич or Pyotr Ilich Чайкoвский or Tchaikovsky". That's less than clear.
It's much better to do something like you suggested in your second bullet point: "enter the main name in Roman only, and add the Cyrillic name as an alternate name." Or you can set the language for the main name as Russian (which allows you to enter both Cyrillic and Roman scripts), but the Cyrillic version will be the primary display name, which may not be readable for most users.
Regardless of which language you choose for the main name, you should enter the other language as an alternate name. If you choose to use Russian for the main name, then you would use an alternate name in English of type "Also Known As"; if you choose to use English for the main name, then you would use an alternate name in Russian of type "Birth Name".
How do you choose which language to use for the main name? You have to decide, but some criteria you might consider would be:
- How was the person known predominantly throughout his or her life?
- With which language will most users of FamilySearch expect to find this person?
Note that both the main name and all the alternate names will be used in searching, and by searching I mean both the name matching used in suggesting record hints and also the searching used in Family Tree > Find (or Search > Family Tree, which is the exact same feature). That's one big reason why it is important to enter names like this in both scripts, using alternate names as appropriate.
lchoqu wrote:It will be interesting to see what prints out on the temple cards when I get that far, especially since my wife (who is proxy for the females) doesn't read Cyrillic.
If you choose to enter the main name in Russian, then both the Cyrillic and the Roman scripts will appear on the temple cards. It's important to include the Roman scripts, not just because the patron (your wife in this case) may not be able to read Cyrillic, but it's highly likely that others officiating in ordinances will also not be able to read Cyrillic either (except perhaps in the Ukraine Kyiv Temple).