Terry's ORA Tips

Template Example – Extracting Names

This page created 4 Jul 2020

Version note: Applies to ORA 1.04

This article describes one of my example Templates for Online Repository Assistant (ORA). The other example Templates can be found in the index of Example Templates. Other articles in my ORA Section cover various topics about using the software. The "How it Works" section below includes links to articles describing the ORA features used in this Template.

Description:

The Templates described here extract the parts of a person's name when the whole name is presented in a single field, and present them as given name or surname separately, or as the full name with surname first. Because of the great variety of ways names are constructed and how they are indexed by repositories, it is virtually impossible to write a template that will work in every case. The Templates described here deal with the simplest cases and leave for manual correction cases where they cannot extract the names correctly.

Example Output:

When a name appears in the field as: John Robert Jones

Given Name:

John Robert

Surname:

Jones

Surname First:

Jones, John Robert

Type:

Text or Auto Type

Use:

For a Text Template, in the ORA Control Panel in the browser window containing the record of interest, click the  icon of this Template to copy the data to the clipboard. Then open the census event or citation data input screen of your genealogy program and paste it in the desired field.

If used as an Auto Type Template, place the cursor in the desired field in the genealogy program and click the appropriate Auto Type button in the ORA Control Panel, or include the segment as part of a more comprehensive Template.

Limitations:

• Does not accommodate more than two given names or initials.
• Does not accommodate surnames that include a space.
• Does not accommodate names with suffixes such as Jr or III.
• Does not accommodate fields in which the surname is first.
• Does not correct the case when the name is indexed with incorrect case.
• Does not add periods after initials or abbreviations when missing in the indexed name.
• Must be modified if the field that contains the person's name is not labeled "Name."

How it Works:

The Templates use the :split Transform to extract the name parts, then output the desired parts. Each of the three templates is described below:

Given Name:

The template extracts the second, and if it exists, the third name parts, counting from the end of the field, using the :split Transform:

The :split Transform requires two parameters. The first here is a space, because the name parts are separated by spaces. The second parameter is the number representing the position of the part that is desired. The minus sign indicates the counting is from the end, not the beginning, of the field.

The first term of the Template is enclosed in Conditional brackets, shown in pink above, so that if there is only one given name, the space at the end of that term is not output.

Surname:

This template extracts the last name part using the :split Transform:

Here the second parameter is -1, to extract the last name part.

Surname First:

This template combines the two segments described above, adding a comma and space after the surname element:

Template:

The following are the complete Templates. They can be copied from the area below and pasted into either a Text Template or Auto Type Template in the OraSettings window. For details on creating a Template, see my article on Template Basics.

Given Name:

Surname:

Surname First:

Copyright 2000- by Terry Reigel