* TNG and FH event witnesses standoff

[ADC65]

Yes I'm sure you're right on the level 3 tags in the Gedcom specification. Whether TNG can cope with that I'm not sure.

Yes the citations relate to a Baptism Record source. I've attached an FH screenshot and a coreesponding TNG screenshot too. The [3] after the final name is a link to the source record, which is listed as a link at the bottom of the screen.

Screenshot 2023-12-11 003623.png (128.39 KiB) Viewed 863 times

Screenshot 2023-12-11 003809.png (95.07 KiB) Viewed 863 times

[OlivierM]

Dear Mike,

I want to express my immense gratitude to you, because you made it possible to show reciprocal witness links in TNG, something that I long for since ages, and that I asked Darrin to develop, without success.

You know that I insisted on seeing the subject of a witnessed event to become the attribute of the reciprocal event, and NOT copied a note field.

One consequence of this is – among others– that in chronological reports where the notes are not included, the outcome looks a bit strange : I was made aware of this through a discussion that is currently going on in the TNG Forum on a new chronological report.

e.g.:

image.png (5.84 KiB) Viewed 856 times

in the chronological event map


or

image.png (2.12 KiB) Viewed 856 times

In the descendant detailed register report

Where you would expect:

image.png (7.57 KiB) Viewed 856 times

Today the outcome of the GEDCOM plugin looks like this :

1 EVEN
2 TYPE Marriage Witness
2 DATE 23 JAN 1842
2 PLAC Arlon
2 NOTE principal: of <a href="getperson.php?personID=I88889186&amp;tree=tree13">Sigisbert MARTHA</a> and <a href="getperson.php?personID=I88889176&amp;tree=tree13">Elisabeth BACLESSE</a>

Or

1 EVEN
2 TYPE Baptism Godmother
2 DATE 27 JAN 1778
2 PLAC la paroisse Saint Nicolas à Luxembourg-ville, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg
2 ADDR Paroisse Saint Nicolas
2 NOTE principal : <a href="getperson.php?personID=I193&amp;tree=tree13">Jean-Louis REDING</a>

Or

1 EVEN
2 TYPE Death Informant
2 DATE 29 JAN 1875
2 PLAC Schaerbeek,
2 ADDR rue Gallait 83
2 OBJE @O7292@
2 NOTE principal: <a href="getperson.php?personID=I2563&amp;tree=tree13">Thomas SIMON</a>

The object person is allways put in a note field

As a result, the event appears as follows in the getperson page :

Witness of Marriage of 23 Jan 1842 Arlon
• of Sigisbert MARTHA and Elisabeth BACLESSE


But in a the chronological report, where notes are not included, it appears as :

23 Jan 1842 - Witness of Marriage of: at Arlon



I want the referent person(s) to appear as the attribute of the EVENT, like this :
Witness of Marriage of 23 Jan 1842 Arlon
of Sigisbert MARTHA and Elisabeth BACLESSE


23 Jan 1842 - Witness of Marriage of: Sigisbert MARTHA and Elisabeth BACLESSE at Arlon

To achieve that, I need a routine that modifies the GEDCOM with the Following rule :

Code: Select all

If  tag = 2 NOTE principal :  <link>
then copy <link>  to 1 EVEN that precedes 2 NOTE 
and delete 2 NOTE.
If 1 EVEN has already an attribute,  don’t do anything

with the following result:

1 EVEN of <a href="getperson.php?personID=I88889186&amp;tree=tree13">Sigisbert MARTHA</a> and <a href="getperson.php?personID=I88889176&amp;tree=tree13">Elisabeth BACLESSE</a>
2 TYPE Marriage Witness
2 DATE 23 JAN 1842
2 PLAC Arlon

1 EVEN <a href="getperson.php?personID=I193&amp;tree=tree13">Jean-Louis REDING</a>
2 TYPE Baptism Godmother
2 DATE 27 JAN 1778
2 PLAC la paroisse Saint Nicolas à Luxembourg-ville, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg
2 ADDR Paroisse Saint Nicolas

1 EVEN <a href="getperson.php?personID=I2563&amp;tree=tree13">Thomas SIMON</a>
2 TYPE Death Informant
2 DATE 29 JAN 1875
2 PLAC Schaerbeek,
2 ADDR rue Gallait 83
2 OBJE @O7292@


I wanted to explain you in detail why this looks so important to me, and I realise that probably this is very TNG specific, and could require a distinct small program to re-order the GEDCOM output. But I felt I had to mention this if there is any chance that you could include it in the final version of the Gedcom Plugin.

Kind regards,

Olivier

[ADC65]

I'm very sorry to disagree with you Olivier, but this is not the sort of output I would be looking for. I understand that you are looking to get a very specific looking output in TNG, but making these changes would possibly break the flow of presentation used in other TNG configurations (i.e., someone who has not set up the configuration in the same way as yourself).

As you probably already know, you can make the Map feature read more naturally by not changing the tag description, so it would just read "Marriage Witness" instead of "Witness of Marriage of" (obviously this would change the main body display as well).

The Descendants Register report does look a little odd, but you can switch the Notes and Events section off and use a Individual Narrative report to get what you are looking for, and the field you want does actually appear further down in the Notes section anyway:

Screenshot 2023-12-11 105739.png (3.46 KiB) Viewed 842 times

So although I respect your requirement to have a very specific output format, I don't think I could support the change for fear of it breaking my own display.

[jclifford]

This is to give more information about my post on 9th .

My attachment has extracts from the exported gedcom which I uploaded to my website and contains:
Record I5 Richard Hulbert including his Will
Record I7 Anne Hulbert his daughter and beneficiary of his will
Record I21 Edward Middlecott an overseeer and witness of the will

You can see the upload of Richard's record onto TNG at:
https://hulbert.one-name.net/genealogy/ ... tree=tree3

You should be able to see that there are many witness events for Richard in the gedcom which are not present on the website except two where he had a dual role, and that his daughter's beneficiary event under Richard's will does not show on her page but Meddlecott's dual event does show on his.

I suspect this is a problem with TNG, but would be glad to have any suggestions.

[tatewise]

John, clearly the Ω Will Beneficiary and other single Role facts are in the GEDCOM file.
As you say, multiple Role facts are displayed correctly. So it seems to be a TNG issue.
Is it anything to do with the TNG 'mod' for custom facts you mentioned earlier?
Or is it to do with the TNG Event / Attribute Types >> Edit Existing Type settings?

[OlivierM]

I'm very sorry to disagree with you Olivier, but this is not the sort of output I would be looking for. I understand that you are looking to get a very specific looking output in TNG, but making these changes would possibly break the flow of presentation used in other TNG configurations (i.e., someone who has not set up the configuration in the same way as yourself).

As you probably already know, you can make the Map feature read more naturally by not changing the tag description, so it would just read "Marriage Witness" instead of "Witness of Marriage of" (obviously this would change the main body display as well).

The Descendants Register report does look a little odd, but you can switch the Notes and Events section off and use a Individual Narrative report to get what you are looking for, and the field you want does actually appear further down in the Notes section anyway:


Screenshot 2023-12-11 105739.png


So although I respect your requirement to have a very specific output format, I don't think I could support the change for fear of it breaking my own display.

Thank you for your feedback, Adrian.

I think there is a misunderstanding here, because I do not see what would be so specific to the output I propose/ I simply want the witness backlink tags to be readable everywhere in TNG, and not only in the reports where they include the attached note. I try to follow the TNG logic.
But anyway, this discussion would lead us to far.

There is one change that is very needed however, which is to drop the "of" in the backlink from a marriage witness event. Because this is not translated when you switch to another language. And like we stated earlier, the "of" can be added in the TNG display message of the event.

Olivier

[tatewise]

Adrian, I have reproduced the multiple Witness Roles each with the same Source Citation and exported to TNG.
The exported GEDCOM certainly has interleaved CONT and SOUR tags.
When opened with FH V7 it correctly handles those tags and puts multiple copies of the same Source Citation against the Note listing the witnesses.
So it would seem to be a TNG issue and TNG is not handling the GEDCOM tags according to the specification.
Perhaps that should be reported to Darrin Lythgoe.

[tatewise]

Olivier and Adrian, I think that the word 'of' is being used too much.

It would certainly be reasonable to remove 'of' from before the family couple hyperlinks. I can easily do that.
However, what about the 'and' between the family couple hyperlinks? That won't get translated either.
Is it really a TNG issue that it does not support the translation of Note text?

IMO: If the 'of' at the end of 'Witness of Marriage of' were removed then it would look OK and be more consistent.
No other fact names end in 'of', e.g. you don't have 'Birth of' or 'Death of' or 'Marriage of'.

[ADC65]

So it would seem to be a TNG issue and TNG is not handling the GEDCOM tags according to the specification.
Perhaps that should be reported to Darrin Lythgoe.

Thank you for investigating Mike. I will drop a line to Darrin and let him know. Since this is valid, straightforward GEDCOM he might fix it. If I get any response I'll report it here.

[ADC65]

Olivier and Adrian, I think that the word 'of' is being used too much.

As I replied to Olivier, I am happy with the current configuration of your plugin, TNG configuration and display. As you will know through experience of plugins, it will be impossible to get exactly what everyone wants and it certainly wouldn't be disastrous if any grammatical changes were made in the plugin. I don't have any issues with the number of 'ofs' and 'ands'.

Screenshot 2023-12-11 132920.png (22.36 KiB) Viewed 819 times

[OlivierM]

Olivier and Adrian, I think that the word 'of' is being used too much.

It would certainly be reasonable to remove 'of' from before the family couple hyperlinks. I can easily do that.
However, what about the 'and' between the family couple hyperlinks? That won't get translated either.
Is it really a TNG issue that it does not support the translation of Note text?

IMO: If the 'of' at the end of 'Witness of Marriage of' were removed then it would look OK and be more consistent.
No other fact names end in 'of', e.g. you don't have 'Birth of' or 'Death of' or 'Marriage of'.

So I would really love if you removed it, in the hyperlinks, but may be I can do it by myself by editing the plugin ?

And regarding the "And", it can be replaced by "&" which is universal.

It is not the double occurence of "of" that annoys me, it is its occurrence in the note.

[tatewise]

When I added the Labels Set A tab Family label I thought about removing 'of' when Family is blank, but left it to see what everyone said.

I will remove that 'of' before the hyperlinks when the Family label is blank.

I also considered replacing 'and' with '&' but does anyone know if TNG is happy with an explicit '&' or does it need to be escaped with the '&amp;' HTTP code?

I don't recommend editing the plugin as it is quite complex and would have to repeat it every time it is updated.

[OlivierM]

When I added the Labels Set A tab Family label I thought about removing 'of' when Family is blank, but left it to see what everyone said.

I will remove that 'of' before the hyperlinks when the Family label is blank.

I also considered replacing 'and' with '&' but does anyone know if TNG is happy with an explicit '&' or does it need to be escaped with the '&amp;' HTTP code?

I don't recommend editing the plugin as it is quite complex and would have to repeat it every time it is updated.

Thank you Mike,

And TNG seems to be perfectly happy with an explicit "&" in my test case.

[ADC65]

I also considered replacing 'and' with '&' but does anyone know if TNG is happy with an explicit '&' or does it need to be escaped with the '&amp;' HTTP code?

I replaced this:

Code: Select all

2 NOTE Key Person:	 <a href="familygroup.php?familyID=F12&amp;tree=primarytree">Marriage</a> of <a href="getperson.php?personID=I26&amp;tree=primarytree">Stuart Samuel COOK</a> and <a href="getperson.php?personID=I31&amp;tree=primarytree">Hazel RICHARDS

with this:

Code: Select all

2 NOTE Key Person:	 <a href="familygroup.php?familyID=F12&amp;tree=primarytree">Marriage</a> of <a href="getperson.php?personID=I26&amp;tree=primarytree">Stuart Samuel COOK</a> & <a href="getperson.php?personID=I31&amp;tree=primarytree">Hazel RICHARDS

That is, I changed the "and" between the first person's name and the second person's hyperlink to " & ". The results in TNG was from this:

Screenshot 2023-12-11 151403.png (10.72 KiB) Viewed 791 times

to this:

Screenshot 2023-12-11 151622.png (10.08 KiB) Viewed 791 times

So the change seems successful without any escape characters, etc.

[jclifford]

Mike - thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction.

I went to the TNG Event/Attribute admin section and found that there were 187 types listed of which 125 were set to On Import: Ignore.

What I do not understand now is why this has suddenly gone wrong - presumably in one of Darrins updates.

[tatewise]

John, in TNG Import/Export > GEDCOM Import dialogue did you set Accept data for all new Custom Event Types?
If not then I think they may all get set to Ignore.

[jclifford]

I always tick "Accept data for all new Event Types and attributes"
but not for "Import Custom Event Types and attributes only (no data is added, replaced or appended""

[ADC65]

I always tick "Accept data for all new Event Types and attributes"
but not for "Import Custom Event Types and attributes only (no data is added, replaced or appended""

I believe that doing this will import the custom event types, so they will be added to the Event Types table. But their default will be ignore. You have to go to Event Types (or Event / Attribute Types if you're on Version 14) and then set any new types to On Import > Accept.

Once set, this should stick unless you clear the table in Trees > Clear.

In other words, "Accept data for all new event types and attributes" will add the new types to the events table, but it will not, on the same import, add those actual events to the people. You have to go and amend the events table first. I then do another import to get these in place. This has been my experience of how it works, anyway.

[jclifford]

Thank you Adrian.

It seems an odd system - why would anyone import a new event type unless they wanted to use it?

[tatewise]

Maybe a TNG expert on a TNG user forum can answer that question!


I have updated the plugin with the recently requested minor changes.
However, I have discovered a flaw in the principal fact when the Witness Role label is set to Before other notes.
The Fact Witness Role hyperlinks listed in the local Note are in reverse order compared to the original Project.
It also happens in the Fact Witness Facts when MAX mode is chosen.
I am working on a solution which is not easy!

[ADC65]

It seems an odd system - why would anyone import a new event type unless they wanted to use it?

Well it seems once again I have to correct myself. It appears that in Version 14 at least, importing a tree and ticking "Accept data for all new Event Types and attributes" does now indeed default to Accept in the Event & Attribute Type table, and the newly discovered Events in the GEDCOM will be imported on first pass. I believe this is a change from Version 13 where it was called the Custom Events table and the behaviour was different. If you are running V13 or have V13 legacy tables, maybe the old behaviour will still apply.

I'm aware that this conversation should probably happen on the TNG forums, and I don't want to annoy the good graces of the FH forum moderators, but hopefully this might help you.

[jclifford]

Thank you Adrian.

I have passed on details of my problem to the person who looks after the members websites for the Guild of One-name Studies and he is pursuing it in TNG forums.

[tatewise]

I have updated the plugin with the recently requested minor changes, and fixed the flaw in the Fact Witness Role hyperlink lists when the Witness Role label is set to Before other notes.
A side-effect of that fix is that the interleaved CONT and SOUR tags issue reported by Adrian is also avoided.

Olivier, I haven't moved the Principal hyperlinks to the Fact Witness Event values as there is no general agreement.

The plugin closing popup message has been updated as requested by another user to make the advice clearer.

Try the attached Export Gedcom File plugin Version 5.5.5 Date 12 Dec 2023 compressed ZIP file.

[OlivierM]

Dear Mike,

It works at a charm, thank you.

Olivier

[jclifford]

5.5.5 works fine for me, thank you.