5-4.10 Compound surname by marriage.
Another specific case to consider is a person who
carries a name such as "Barker-Cuthbert" for a surname. What are the consequences of viewing this
as two surnames? Maybe some record keeper analyzes this surname into two pieces and chooses
one of them to record. In this case there seems little difficulty in estimating a value specific
comparison weight of "Barker-Cuthbert." There would be a moderate weight for <Barker> and
another one for <Cuthbert>. The sum of these two weights would be comparable to a single high
field weight, quite like we would guess that <Barker-Cuthbert> ought to be. But two common
names would weight too little together, and two very rare names would be more like having two field
weights.
The key to combining the weights is the realization that it is the coincidence value, not the
reliability that needs adjusting. The coincidence (c) for a combination of names ought to be the
product of the coincidences of each component name (c1 × c2).
aw = log2 [r ÷ (c1 × c2)] | (5.8) |
dw = log2 [(1 r) ÷ (1 [c1 × c2])] | (5.9) |