So I've been wondering about this a while...
So often, middle initials are only known, and not full middle names... therefore, is it better to list a middle initial as:
John H. Doe
-OR-
John H Doe
Because if the man's name is John Henry Doe, a computer might recognize "Henry" and "H." as conflicting (as the period doesn't exist in the name Henry)
So I've been entering all of my family's middle initials without periods, in hopes that they are more effectively matched with users who have the whole middle name...
So which is better, or is the period just ignored by the algorithm completely?
Also... I've seen users use the following strings for names they do not know... Such as:
? Doe
unknown Doe
Mr Doe
male Doe
father Doe
son Doe
A computer would interpret all of these strings as conflicts with the name "John Doe"... So...What is the best naming convention as far as optimizing with the Geni match algorithm?
Thanks!
Steve
