Familypedia:Info pages/Gedcom translation

For general Gedcom information, see GEDCOM.

This topic covers Info pages as they relate to Gedcom.

Gedcom 6.0 structure
      2     1    2</ChildNbr> <RelToFath>adopted</RelToFath> </Child>

<BasedOn> <Link Target="EventRec" Ref="EV001"/> <Link Target="EventRec" Ref="EV002"/> <Note> . . .       </Note> </BasedOn> <ExternalID Type="AFN" Id="4S3469Q"/> <ExternalID Type="submitter" Id="F8945"/>

<Submitter>. . .</Submitter> <Note>. . .</Note> <Evidence> <Citation> </Citation> </Evidence> <Enrichment> <Citation> <Link Target="SourceRec" Ref="SR002"/> <Caption>We Attend the Kunzle Family Reunion</Caption> <WhereInSource> 5 min, 15 sec into the video, to 10 min, 30 sec.           </WhereInSource> <Note>Our family is featured about 5 minutes into the video.</Note> </Citation> </Enrichment> <Changed Date="23 APR 1976" Time="13:25:12"> <Note>Record created</Note> </Changed> <Changed Date=". . ." Time=". . ."> <Contact> <Link Target="ContactRec" Ref=". . ."/> </Contact> <Note>Adopted child added</Note> </Changed> </FamilyRec>

<IndividualRec Id="IN001"> . . . </IndividualRec>

<IndividualRec Id="IN002"> <IndivName> <NamePart Type="title">Duchess </NamePart> <NamePart Type="given name" Level="3"> Neta </NamePart> <NamePart Type="maiden name" Level="2"> Eskelson </NamePart> von <NamePart Type="surname" Level="1">Allen</NamePart> <IndNameVariation Method="romanji"> . . .       </IndNameVariation> </IndivName> <IndivName Type="alias"> . . .   </IndivName> <IndivName Type="nickname"> . . .   </IndivName> <Gender>F</Gender> <DeathStatus>dead</DeathStatus> <PersInfo Type ="occupation"> <Information>seamstress</Information> <Date>FROM 1835 TO 1875</Date> </PersInfo> <PersInfo Type ="residence"> <Date>FROM 10 JUL 1845 TO 25 MAY 1880</Date> <Place>. . .</Place> </PersInfo> <PersInfo Type ="attribute"> <Information>5 ft. 4 in. tall, blond hair, blue eyes, well mannered</Information> </PersInfo> <AssocIndiv> <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref=". . ."/> <Association>first ancestor</Association> <Note>. . .</Note> <Citation>. . .</Citation> </AssocIndiv> <DupIndiv> p. 30 <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref=". . ."/> <Note>. . .</Note> <Citation>. . .</Citation> </DupIndiv> <ExternalID Type=". . ." Id=". . ."/> <Submitter>. . .</Submitter> <Note>. . .</Note> <Evidence>. . .</Evidence> <Enrichment>. . .</Enrichment> <Changed>. . .</Changed> </IndividualRec> <IndividualRec Id="IN003"> . . . </IndividualRec>

<EventRec Id="EV001" Type="marriage" VitalType="marriage"> <Participant> <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref="IN001"/> <Role>husband</Role> <Age>26</Age> </Participant> <Participant> <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref="IN002"/> <Role>wife</Role> <Age>21</Age> </Participant> <Date Calendar="Julian">ABT 7 NOV 1834</Date> <Place> <PlaceName> <PlacePart Type="town" Level="4">Cove</PlacePart>, <PlacePart Type="county" Level="3">Cache</PlacePart>, <PlacePart Type="state" Level="2">Utah</PlacePart>, <PlacePart Type="country" Level="1">USA</PlacePart> </PlaceName> <Coordinates>18.153N 178.150E</Coordinates> <PlaceNameVar Method="kana">. . .</PlaceNameVar> <PlaceNameVar Method="romanji">. . .</PlaceNameVar> </Place> <Religion>Reformed Christian</Religion> <ExternalID Type=". . ." Id=". . ."/> <Submitter>. . .</Submitter> <Note>. . .</Note> <Evidence> <Citation> <Link Target="SourceRec" Ref="SR001"/> <WhereInSource>File No. 7895-09, p. 23</WhereInSource> <WhenRecorded>10 June 1903</WhenRecorded> <Extract>Text extracted from the source.</Extract> <Note>Certified copy in possession of Larry T. Smith, Sandy, Utah.</Note> </Citation> </Evidence> <Enrichment>. . ..</Enrichment> <Changed>. . .</Changed> </EventRec>

<EventRec Id="EV002" Type="christening" VitalType="birth"> <Participant> <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref="IN001"/> <Role>father</Role> </Participant> <Participant> <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref="IN002"/> <Role>mother</Role> </Participant> <Participant> <Link Target="IndividualRec" Ref="IN003"/> <Role>child</Role> </Participant> . . . </EventRec>

Events

 * This is a big improvement for Gedcom 6.0.

Issues

 * Performance: There is some concern about whether the wikimedia engine could handle the larger number of queries that usage of events might impose. For example, for birth date we simply grab the mother's birth with Template:get birth (which by the way is already complicated because it must assemble numeric month etc. plus place with links to wikipedia articles on them.) There is perhaps a dozen calls in there to the info objects for the son, then the mother- verifying existence of the key and so on, then translating and formatting the output.  With events, this will involve greater indirection.  Now I must go routing around in an event structure to find the pointer to the birth event.  Only then can I start reading the data for birth month etc.  Ok.  So now the 12 calls is maybe 24.  But now consider the coding complexity.
 * Will users ignore them? Already, folks have a wierd enough Info page.  It may be a lot of bother for many folks to enter data as separate month day year values.  Now you are going to ask them to go to a different (event) page to just enter a date?  Wow.  If we had forms, we could have an unhide button for a date and we could display the event info in situ.  But that is not going to happen anytime this decade in the wikimedia engine, so we just have to be realistic if folks are going to use any of this stuff.

Plan of record

 * Punt? We must ask, how will the event fields be used? Gedcom will be the dominant generator of these fields.  When gedcom 6.0 files finally materialize, we can think about how we store this info so that we maintain data fidelity- we output gedcoms with no less data thean what we inputed.
 * Citations? Currently, Gedcom 5.5 and prior handle events as supporting evidence with citations.  We could use the Cite feature (as opposed to ref) for encoding such gedcom data.

The vision
The cool thing about events is that they are more than their antecdent- supporting evidentiary material to support a particular date. The lines between genealogy and family history database become blurred. A genealogy database is a particular member of the set of family history database that is concerned solely with the generational structure. Well, maybe we are as interested in the individuals as we are of the statistics. There are collective events such as Building of the empire state building, Sinking of the Titanic, particular battles in wars, that make us in the words of Shakespeare, "bands of brothers" (Henry V), as much as parentage.