At 07:28 AM 5/5/2006, charles matthews wrote:
The fact is that dab pages in general are never
going to be neat and tidy:
it's a catch-all idea. Surname dab pages on the other hand should be
important reference pages, for example for someone wondering which Watson
was a sixteenth century commentator on Senecan drama (Thomas, as I found a
couple of days ago).
Agreed, but this requires to be lenient about spelling.
Historical
names often exist in lots of spelling variants, so one would have to
have Jamison and Jamieson on the same page.
Absolutely. My known family tree stretches back 27 generations, and the
surname is spelt in very nearly that many ways. Originally "de Bossuille",
it has been "Bosvil" and "Boswil" at various times. Only in recent
generations has the spelling settled down, and even so the variant "Boswall"
is still around: there's a famous TV producer of that name who's a distant
cousin.
There is a discussion on Meta as to whether a genealogy project should be
adopted under the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella: this kind of data would be
invaluable for the kind of page Charles is describing. Imagine not simply
having to say "This John Smith is the one born in 1710" but also being able
to say "This John Smith is in our genealogy wiki [[here]]" with a proper
link!
HTH HAND
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Phil
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