Names

Entering or Editing Names of People
Initial Caps Button
Last Name UPPERCASE Button
Converting Case for Everybody
Sex
Nicknames

Name Changes
Soundex Numbers

Ditto Shortcuts
Autocomplete Last Names

Autocomplete First & Middle Names

Flipping the Names in Buttons

Copying Names to the Clipboard

Entering or Editing Names of People

To enter or edit the name of a person...

  1. Navigate to the person's record (where he or she appears in the center of the Family View).
  2. Click directly on the name or choose Edit > Person > [person's name]. If the person isn't yet entered and you click an empty button, you'll create a new record for the person.

edit person

This will open the Name section of the Edit Person panel, shown below.

The Name section contains fields for first and middle names, last name, prefix title, suffix title, and user ID number.

You can press the Tab key to move from field to field to enter information. You can press Shift + Tab to move backward through the fields. Or, you can simply point and click the mouse to put the cursor into any field.

Reunion saves your changes as you go. When you are finished entering or editing names, you can return to the family view by clicking Done, pressing the Return or Enter key, or clicking Family View in the navbar.

Initial Caps Button

If the Initial Caps button is checked, the first letter of each word in a field will be capitalized when you "exit" the field by pressing the Tab key, clicking Done, or otherwise closing the Edit Person window.

Pressing the Option key while you "exit" a field will not apply the Initial Caps button. For example, you can press Option + Tab after making an entry for which you do not want the case changed.

The Initial Caps button appears in the Name, Events, and Facts section of the Edit Person panel and the Marriage, Children, and Events sections of the Edit Family panel. The setting of this button is independent in each place it appears.

Last Name UPPERCASE Button

If the Last Name UPPERCASE button is checked, the person's last name will be converted to uppercase when you "exit" the field by pressing the Tab key, clicking Done, or otherwise closing the Edit Person panel. The conversion only happens if you make a change in the Last Name field.

Pressing the Option key while you "exit" a field will not apply the Last Name UPPERCASE button. For example, you can press Option + Tab after making an entry which you do not want capitalized.

Prefix words, as defined in the General Settings, will not be changed by the Initial Caps or Last Name UPPERCASE buttons.

Converting Case for Everybody

To capitalize or change the case of the first and middle names, last names (surnames), and/or titles of everybody to uppercase, mixed case, or lower case...

  1. Click Change in the navbar.
  2. Click Case in the submenu.

This opens the Case panel...

“Last name prefixes" are words such as Van in Van Dyke. Whether or not words are considered "prefix words" is determined by a setting in the General Settings. If the Sort on the entire last name button in the General Settings is selected, the Last name prefixes button in the Case panel will be disabled.

Sex

To change the sex or gender of a person, use the Sex button in the Edit Person panel. The sex of a child is also shown in the Children section of the Edit Family panel.

Nicknames

There are several options for recording a nickname or the name a person goes by.

  1. Make nicknames part of the First & Mid Name field. For example, William "Slim."
  2. Record the nickname separately in a fact field.
  3. You could mention it in the Miscellaneous Notes field. For example, you could say "Everyone knew him as Slim."

Name Changes and Multiple Last Names

Here are three suggested approaches for handling cases where research reveals that a person has used multiple surnames over a lifetime. (This summary is based on an excellent post by Reunion user Teri Pettit, on ReunionTalk.)

  1. Use the surname that the person most often went by.

    If there is no clear winner here, then use the surname the person was using at the time of their death or use the surname that most of the person's children used.

    Enter any other names in the "Alias/AKA" fact field, which has a standard GEDCOM tag and should be imported properly by other genealogy software apps, should the need arise.

    Two downsides to this approach...you can't use the search box in a sidebar to search for surnames entered in a fact field. Nor will the surnames appear in the People sidebar, although you can add a column in the List window for any fact, including alternate names, if you prefer to use the List window as your index of people.

  2. Put both surnames in the surname field and enclose one in brackets. (Do not separate surnames with a slash "/" character as it will likely cause problems with GEDCOM transfer.)

    Use square brackets for actual name changes, entered in the order that the names were in usage, with the less used name in brackets and the primary name unadorned - for example, "[Clark] Black" indicates someone who was born a Clark, but went by Black most of his life, such as a child who took on their stepfather's surname when their mother remarried, whereas "Walters [Orbison]" would indicate someone who went by Walters most of his life, but switched to Orbison late in life.

    If research for a person produces multiple names and the correct version is unknown — but are likely more than just spelling variations — separate them with the word "or" (such as "Fortner or Falkner," "Pelfrey or Hargis," etc.). This often occurs when a maiden name is reported differently, and no marriage record or other evidence of parentage is available.

    The advantage of method #2 is that using the search box in sidebars, and using the Find feature will locate matches because all of the possible surnames for a person appear in the Last Name field. For example, you could search for either Clark or Black in the search box (or type either "Cla" or "Bla" into the search box) and a name like "[Clark] Black" would match either way.

  3. Pick one surname and relegate the other to Notes, where you can add explanatory text. For example, in the notes you could say something like, "He went by Strasburg as a child and Strasberg as an adult" in the misc. notes field and enter "Strasberg" into the Last Name field.
Soundex Numbers

Soundex numbers are automatically calculated by Reunion and displayed in the Edit Person panel. Soundex is a methodology used in filing and searching for names to compensate for different spellings of the same names. The Soundex system has been used to file names on indexes for various resources, such as US census records and immigration lists.

Name Soundex
Smith S530
Smythe S530

How to search for Soundex numbers.
How to append Soundex numbers to names in charts and reports.
How to display Soundex numbers in buttons.
How to sort the List window by Soundex number.

Source Citations

Ditto Shortcuts

The "ditto" shortcut, pressing Command + apostrophe, lets you automatically duplicate the last entry you made in a place field or the last name field. For example...

Autocomplete Last Names

As you enter or edit last names, you'll notice a drop-down list of name suggestions. This list provides a shortcut for entering last names (surnames). For example, if you have some very long last names in your family, you only have to type them once. Each time thereafter when you begin to type the name, Reunion will fill in the rest of the name for you and show a drop-down list of names based on the letters you've typed.

For example, let's say you're about to enter somebody with the surname Todd and you've already entered another person with the same surname. When you begin to type in his surname, you'll press t and Reunion will show a drop-down list of names beginning with t; so, you might see Thomas, Thompson, etc. Then, if you type another letter, the letter o, Reunion will automatically list surnames that begin with the letters to — thus Thomas and Thompson will disappear from the list.

You can use the arrow keys on the keyboard, or your mouse, to select the correct surname from the drop-down list.

Reunion remembers surnames as you enter or edit them in the Edit Person panel, Edit Family panel, and List windows. 10,000 last names are remembered on a modified first-in, first-out basis. If a name in the list is reused, that name will be moved back to the top of the FIFO list, so that names exiting the list are those least recently used.

Autocomplete is always enabled for last names. It is not enabled for other fields, except First/Middle Names (explained below) and places (which are explained here).

Autocomplete First and Middle Names

Reunion has a parallel "autocomplete" feature for the First & Middle Name field (aka “given names").

This feature should reduce your work, by making it faster to enter common names. I.e., if you enter somebody named "William" you’ll never need to type "William" again.

How Does This Work?

This feature autocompletes on a word-by-word basis, making it slightly different than the autocomplete feature for last names.

For example, let's say there are two people named "Gregg Daniel Jones"; and "Harry Frank Smith." In this case, the individual words "Gregg," "Daniel," "Frank," and "Harry," are saved in the autocomplete list, rather than complete name "Daniel Gregg" and "Harry Frank."

Here's a typical example when entering the name for a female and typing "j"...

"Jane," "Jenny," and "Joan," will be listed; but not "Jim" or "John."

However, if you enter a name that is used for both a male and a female — for example if you have a male and a female in your file named "Terry" or "Hillary" — then those names will be presented for both sexes. If a name is being entered for a person of unknown sex, then autocomplete will present both male and female names.

4,000 unique first/middle names are remembered on a modified first-in, first-out basis. If a name in the list is reused, that name will be moved back to the top of the FIFO list, so that names exiting the list are those least recently used.

When Are Autocomplete Lists Updated?

Autocomplete lists for first, middle, and last names are updated whenever names are added/edited in...

Removing Mistakes and Bad Entries From Autocomplete

Let's say you've entered a surname incorrectly — for example, you typed the surname "Thompson" incorrectly as "Thomppsonn" — but then you corrected the entry another day and typed it "Thompson."

In this case, the list of last names now contains both spellings and will dutifully suggest both in the autocomplete drop-down list as you're entering new people and you begin to type the surname Thompson.

To "cleanse" the names...

  1. Begin typing a name into the Last Name field or the First/Mid Name field.
  2. The autocomplete drop-down list will appear.
  3. You'll notice an item at the bottom of the list called Rebuild autocomplete lists.
  4. Select that item to create a new, updated lists of names for the autocomplete features. A confirming message will appear when finished.

Thus, if you've entered a misspelled name but subsequently removed it, the misspelled name will disappear from autocomplete after rebuilding the autocomplete lists.

Flipping the Names in Buttons

If desired, you may flip (or swap) the first and last names in buttons. To do this...

  1. Choose Reunion > Settings.
  2. Click the Family View button.
  3. Click Miscellaneous.
  4. Enable the Last name first button.
  5. If desired, enable the Comma after last name button.

Names will then be displayed: LastName, FirstName in buttons in the family view. This setting also applies to the display of names in web family cards and cascading pedigree charts.

Copying Names to the Mac Clipboard

In the Edit Person window, Control-clicking on the name near the top will show a menu with options to copy text details into to the Clipboard.

Here are examples of the text that would go into the Clipboard...

Full Name
Alma Elaine RICE

Full Name and dates
Alma Elaine RICE (1900-1975)

Full Name, birth and death info
Alma Elaine RICE
b: 1900
d: 1975