Before, alpha sorting distinguished umlauted characters from non, so would sort like this:
Baa
Bad
Bag
Bäa
Bäd
Bäg
Whereas HT wants
Baa
Bäa
Bad
Bäd
Bag
Bäg
I created a person_name_normal field and put into it the person_last_name field, and then went through and replaced all instances of ä with a, ö with o and ü with u, so the normalized field no longer has the umlauted characters.

I now have to revise the code for output so that it includes the person_name_normal field and sorts on that field rather than on person_last_name.
I also have to revise the code that populates the database so that it properly includes the normalized version of the person_last_name automatically.