Methods
Track St. Augustine Name Variants Before You Merge People
This field note is part of the FOBA learning stream. It is meant to orient readers and point toward better source work.
Key points
- A spelling match is not enough to merge people across parish, military, cemetery, newspaper, or map records.
- Translation notes and name variants should remain visible until dates, places, relationships, and record creators line up.
- This workflow reduces same-name errors and prevents identity-adjacent claims from moving too fast.
Next steps
- Create a variant table before merging two records into one person profile.
- Mark each variant as original wording, transcription, translation, OCR, or later summary.
- Send contested merges through Claim Review before they appear in public copy.
Source trail
- FOBA St. Augustine translation guide – Name variants and translation limits.
- FOBA Claim Review Card – Use before stronger identity-adjacent wording.