* Residence or Address Fact?

[davidm_uk]

I'm in the process of finding out where my ancestors lived, at times other than shown in census and BMD events, and find myself confused as to whether I should use an address or residence fact, also be consistent with what FH and AS might do automatically, and how each of these appear in various reports. The information in these two facts seems to be duplicated, but I'm sure there must be a good reason why both exist.

Some guidance, or information on what others do, would be very helpful before I start adding more data.

[Jane]

Where did you find the address fact? Is it in one of the Custom Fact sets? It's not a standard Gedcom one.

I would use a Residence Fact when I have an address for someone. Putting the town/village in the place and the rest of the address in the address field for the fact.

[davidm_uk]

The address fact is a custom one, at some stage I must have downloaded one of the custom fact sets which included this one. Someone must have created it for a reason, but maybe it's been overtaken. I'd be more than happy to replace them all with one consistent fact. Is there a query which will list all the instances of where I've used a given fact?

[Jane]

You can either use the Fact Query or just use Mikes "Change Any Fact" plugin to swap the Address Facts for Residence ones.

[davidm_uk]

Thanks Jane

[ambisset]

An address fact is a standard GEDCOM fact type:

Code: Select all

ADDRESS_STRUCTURE:=
n ADDR <ADDRESS_LINE> {1:1} p.41
+1 CONT <ADDRESS_LINE> {0:3} p.41
+1 ADR1 <ADDRESS_LINE1> {0:1} p.41
+1 ADR2 <ADDRESS_LINE2> {0:1} p.41
+1 ADR3 <ADDRESS_LINE3> {0:1} p.41
+1 CITY <ADDRESS_CITY> {0:1} p.41
+1 STAE <ADDRESS_STATE> {0:1} p.42
+1 POST <ADDRESS_POSTAL_CODE> {0:1} p.41
+1 CTRY <ADDRESS_COUNTRY> {0:1} p.41
n PHON <PHONE_NUMBER> {0:3} p.57
n EMAIL <ADDRESS_EMAIL> {0:3} p.41
n FAX <ADDRESS_FAX> {0:3} p.41
n WWW <ADDRESS_WEB_PAGE> {0:3} p.42
The address structure should be formed as it would appear on a mailing label using the ADDR and
the CONT lines to form the address structure. The ADDR and CONT lines are required for any
address. The additional subordinate address tags such as STAE and CTRY are provided to be used
by systems that have structured their addresses for indexing and sorting. For backward compatibility
these lines are not to be used in lieu of the required ADDR.and CONT line structure.

Although its similar to a PLAC tag rather than similar to a RESI tag.

So RESI tag should be used for a Residence and the residence can be recorded with a PLAC and/or an ADDR record as Jane suggests.

[AdrianBruce]

An address fact is a standard GEDCOM fact type:

Sorry, that's not true. The ADDRESS_STRUCTURE is a standard chunk of GEDCOM - a standard tag. But it's not a standard fact about a person or family. It's a tag that is a subsidiary of any individual's or families EVENT_STRUCTURE or ATTRIBUTE_STRUCTURE. The facts are, effectively, the top level EVENT_STRUCTURE or ATTRIBUTE_STRUCTUREs for the individuals and families.

So, facts are the top level for our purposes. Each fact can have a subsidiary address, but the address is only ever - in standard GEDCOM - a subsidiary, never the fact.

[ambisset]

You are of course correct my choice of words for the first sentence was poor. I did put it better later when I said it was like a PLAC tag not a RESI tag thus showing I do understand the meaning. I apologise for the lack of clarity. I should have said fact TAG not fact TYPE as that is what I meant.