In an old family tree program I used, there was an "automatic" fuction that I thought was quite usefull, but I can't seem to find it anywhere in iFamily. Let me explain what it did.
I could enter a woman with her maiden name. E.G. "Jane Doe". Then, when I enter a husband for her (Let's say "John Smith"), it would give me the option of appending her married name. If I take that option, she then becomes "Jane Doe, AKA Jane Smith". This really helped in searches (she would show up in a search for "Doe" family members as well as a search for "Smith" family members). If you know you're looking for "Jane Smith", who you've only known since she was married but had no idea what her maiden name was,you wouldn't KNOW to search for "Jane Doe". If her married name had NOT been appended, you would never find "Jane Smith", no matter how hard you looked. Then, if, say, John Smith passed away, and Jane remarried to "Frank Johnson", she would then be listed as "Jane Doe", "Jane Smith", AND "Jane Johnson", so you'd be able to find her in any of THREE searches.
This automatic appending of the name came in very handy with the old program, and I'm wondering if there's a similar function in iFamily. I've seen the "Auto Append Family Name" check box on the main window, but when I check it or uncheck it, nothing seems to happen. Is that what I'm ooking for, and I'm just missing something, or is that checkbox for something completely different, and iFamily doesn't DO what I'm talking about?
Thanks!
Maiden Names and Married Names
iFamily does have a field in the main pane where you can enter an "AKA", but as far as I can see those entries don't come up in the name search. This was a field that was only added shortly before Keith Wilson died and I think was intended to do more eventually. Although it is strictly correct to enter women under their maiden name where you know it, I can see that searching on any of the variations she might have had during her life being very useful indeed.