Family Historian User Group

And I have no argument with anyone who makes a pragmatic decision to use 5.5.1 based on reasons like you mention. In fact, I'd very possibly agree with you if I were writing software. No, my problems are with those who look no further than the name and status on the front page - witness the numbers...

Anybody who understands anything about processes, procedures, and document / standard revision will have been appalled at the undue reverence given to 5.5.1. It contains lots of good ideas but ... I have no reverence for GEDCOM 5.5.1, but I'd far prefer that applications implement it, and default t...

Mervyn wrote, "Can any standards review(er) which completely omits the reputedly "largest selling Family Tree application of all time" which supposedly supports GEDCOM 5.5.1, and doesn't even mention that software, really expect to be taken seriously?" If that comment is referring to my GEDCOM Asses...

Adrian, By my interpretation, a single component in a genealogy application could implement multiple GEDCOM readers and/or writers so long as that component could be configured to support only one of the GEDCOM versions at a time. I do not know whether or not it is practical to do that and meet the ...

to correct a misunderstanding, Tag is a less suitable name than Fact. The GEDCOM 5.5 specification defines a Tag in several places, but mainly Pages 9 & 16. [SNIP] Thus a Tag identifies all GEDCOM structures (e.g. INDI, FAM, DATE, PLAC, ADDR, SOUR, NOTE, OBJE, etc) NOT just facts. Mike, TMG's use o...

Evelyn, I will not comment on how you should arrange your occupation data in Family Historian. I will respond to messages to me where you described the outcome you want in GedSite, which was to restrict the output to a single, primary Occupation tag. I will use GedSite's terminology of "tag" to refe...

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that UTF8 is not a useful 5.5.1 feature, but that if you put it to one side, the other features are not as coherently supported. As I stated earlier, I agree that 5.5 support is not much different. I don't understand why we ought to put it to one side. Heredis may put...

For information Reunion 11 only exports Gedcom 4.0, Gedcom 5.5 or Ancestry.com Ancestral Quest only exports Gedcom 4.0 and Gedcom 5.5 MacFamilyTree & Heredis just say Gedcom export without giving a version. Thanks. Heredis may not indicate the GEDCOM version in its user interface, but I have test f...

AdrianBruce wrote:Tamura Jones has produced an annotated version of 5.5.1

Yes, I know. I have read it. It's a difficult read, but there are many good corrections and suggestions in it.

Thank you ~ that extends my understanding of what is available. But as I have said a few times, apart from UTF8 the support is somewhat patchy and sometimes non-conformant, which makes interchange via GEDCOM virtually impossible, especially when the extensive use of custom tags is thrown into the m...

Mike, You questioned whether it was accurate for me to say, "5.5.1 has some useful and widely adopted features ... and many programs adopt some or all of them." As I described above, Family Historian , Family Tree Maker , RootsMagic and Legacy support two of the most important GEDCOM 5.5.1 features,...

Mike, MAP is probably second after CHAR UTF-8 as the most widely-adopted 5.5.1 feature. A "non-strict" FH GEDCOM 5.5 export uses MAP but under a custom _PLAC record. FTM, RootsMagic and Legacy export to GEDCOM 5.5.1 and use MAP. From what I can tell, they all follow the 5.5.1 rules for the format of...

Mike, Most programs support multiple versions for import. Some support multiple versions for export. None provide full support, as far as I know, and that may not really be possible in any version of the spec given the flaws in each of them. FH supports some 5.5.1 features, for example, though I thi...

But what I do want to do is highlight that anyone with a concern for rigour and risk-reduction is likely to want to approach 5.5.1 with a very long stick. I am aware there are flaws in the 5.5.1 spec. There are flaws in all of the GEDCOM specs. Still, developers somehow manage to make products that...

I am not sure why it matters to the OP whether FH uses GEDCOM 5.5 or GEDCOM 5.5.1. As a developer, I'd prefer that FH use 5.5.1. It would make things easier for me if all the major GEDCOM products use the same version. When things are easier for developers, that translates into benefits for all user...

Evelyn, As of today, 2 February, release 1.3.5 of GedSite imports FH flag values. For that reason, you should NOT use the plug-in option described by Mike to convert the flags into other types of GEDCOM records. GedSite v1.3.5 imports FH flags into GedSite "Attributes" and those attributes can be di...

For completeness, but not important overall, TMG's custom flags are not stored in a separate table. flags.png The definitions are stored in a separate table, but the values are in the main person table, same as Sex, Living, etc. The custom flag fields are given pre-defined names (Flag1, Flag2, etc.)...

So I think your Rule 4 is difficult to write, as Calico Pie have made some arbitrary decisions of their own (like in multibirth). Don et al, It appears that Calico Pie used TMG's database field name, "Multibirth", for the flag that is labeled Multiple Birth in TMG's English UI. Curiously, other rep...

I never use Family Census events, i.e. GEDCOM tag CENS subordinate to tag FAM , for the following reasons.<snip> Peter, I agree with the issues you enumerated with using a Family Census event. I was not advocating that, not sure if you thought I was. As I mentioned, entering a single census event s...

For GedSite purposes, having a single census event shared by all members of a household will produce the best output. Of course, GedSite will also handle separate events for each person, but a single event yields links to every person mentioned by variables in the sentence template. That's especiall...

Senelstune wrote:Apologies. You are of course correct - and it was not my intention to embarrass you with that statement.

John,

No embarrassment suffered nor offense taken! I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page, and that you weren't waiting for me to deliver something.

Secondly, John Cardinal is working on a possible workaround anyway with GS. John, To clarify, I am not working on a possible workaround. I mentioned to you that if you use columnar output for Census events in GedSite, you can construct a column that contains the label of the tag and the year from t...

Mike, I'd hardly call that "irrational". Perhaps you consider GedSite's Family Section as the key indicator of the members of the man's family, but that's not how I look at it. That would discount the meat of the entry you described which includes many entries with his wife. Some other points: 1 - T...

Mike, We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think that the typical partner is hard to find in the tag list, nor is that person necessarily only mentioned once. The spouse / partner will often share census events, for example. GedSite supports more than 2,000 options, so it's inevitable that users...

Is it known how Gedsite handles perfectly valid entries such as 1 MARR Y whether or not there are linked children as well as the two linked spouses? Peter, GedSite handles the "1 MARR Y" case. That will create a marriage event. All subrecords are optional, though if none are supplied the output fro...