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I'm trying to straighten out my database, and I notice that I have two Canadian players - John H Belson, and Harry Belson. I am trying to confirm that they are the same player. My database has "Harry" playing in the Canadian Championship in 1931, and in a few Toronto events from 1927-31. "John H" played in Canadian Championships of 1927, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1945, and 1946, and Toronto and Milwaukee events during the same time period.
His CFC biography lists him as "John Harry (Harold) Belson (1906-47)
Born Finland
Canadian Champion (1934, 1946)
Also played in Canadian Championships: 1926, 1929 (3rd), 1931 (5th), 1932 (4th), 1935 (4th), 1936 (2nd), 1938 (2nd), 1945 (3rd)
It looks like John Harry Belson was known as Harry in the Canadian newspapers. A Google search with these terms leads to a few good articles:
belson chess site:news.google.com/newspapers
It's likely that there are other articles in the archive that this query misses, due to the inherent imperfection of OCR. Some creativity in selecting search terms (e.g. searching for names of competitors, years, venues) may yield more articles.
Yes, they are the same player. Gaige and Chess Life have John Harold Belson, his obituary in the Globe and Mail prefers J. Harry Belson, and Yanofsky's 100 Years of Chess in Canada has J.H. Belson, but the game captions use Harry Belson. The old problem of a popular name being used instead of something "official" - Daniel Abraham Yanofsky or John Monteith Taylor ("Jack"). In Belson's case the various forms in the database need to be linked, question is which form to use, and which initial is to appear in game lists (given that in ChessBase at least only the first initial is used).
I will use "John H" in my database. Other Canadian players pose similar problems - particularly those of the same era. For Robert Martin (a common name), I use "Robert E" (for Elmer, since I was able to verify his middle name). And then there is Yoos. Should he be "Jack" or "John"? (I use "John"). Fox is sometimes noted as "Morris" (rather than "Maurice"). On the British side, we have "C.H.O'D Alexander" (often referred to as "Chod"). I use "Conel Hugh" (leaving out the "O'Donel" part). He was known to friends as "Hugh".
I will use "John H" in my database. Other Canadian players pose similar problems - particularly those of the same era. For Robert Martin (a common name), I use "Robert E" (for Elmer, since I was able to verify his middle name). And then there is Yoos. Should he be "Jack" or "John"? (I use "John"). Fox is sometimes noted as "Morris" (rather than "Maurice"). On the British side, we have "C.H.O'D Alexander" (often referred to as "Chod"). I use "Conel Hugh" (leaving out the "O'Donel" part). He was known to friends as "Hugh".
what do you do for people whose name changes? e.g. women who change their surname on being married, Jeff Sarwar (who played under an alias)?
I will use "John H" in my database. Other Canadian players pose similar problems - particularly those of the same era. For Robert Martin (a common name), I use "Robert E" (for Elmer, since I was able to verify his middle name). And then there is Yoos. Should he be "Jack" or "John"? (I use "John"). Fox is sometimes noted as "Morris" (rather than "Maurice"). On the British side, we have "C.H.O'D Alexander" (often referred to as "Chod"). I use "Conel Hugh" (leaving out the "O'Donel" part). He was known to friends as "Hugh".
In the day, he was always referred to as "C.H.O'D Alexander"!
what do you do for people whose name changes? e.g. women who change their surname on being married, Jeff Sarwar (who played under an alias)?
I usually try to keep both names, giving priority to the current one - e.g. "Dobrich, Vlad (Walter)", "Donaldson (Akhmilovskaya), Elena" or "Jussupow (Yusupov), Artur". Then you have "Bellin (Hartston,Miles), Jana" as an extreme example.
For Jeff Sarwer, I have consolidated all his games under "Sarwer".
Another name case I have solved is that of RB Hayes, who shows up in my database as having played in several Canadian championships in the 30's and 40's. It turns out that he is Rea Hayes, who was playing in the US until 1995. I found his obit from 2001 (not much mention about his Canadian exploits).
The site chessgames.com has a short Belson bio (confirming the info already posted here), along with 11 Belson games. The site chessmetrics.com does not list Belson. He was certainly of National Master strength.
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