TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2002-02 > 1012617032


From: "Darrell A. Martin" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Witness and Roles and V5.0
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 20:30:32 -0600
References: <Springmail.105.1012591652.0.90606200@www.springmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020201152415.0f2f8c50@mail.hwrd1.md.home.com>


At 03:50 PM 2/1/02 -0500, Bob Velke wrote:
>Darrel said:
>
>>However, I believe there is an assumption in your
>>response, above, that is false. That is, that if
>>the TMG event to which one is a witness is called
>>a "baptism", then the export function in TMG must
>>call any and all data generated in GEDCOM format
>>from that TMG event, a "baptism". TMG can, and
>>does with ease, distinguish sentence texts
>>between principals and witnesses. I do not see
>>why there should be any problem with an equivalent
>>kind of distinction during GEDCOM generation.
>
>Well, then, you haven't read the GEDCOM specs lately <g>. GEDCOM is not a
>blank slate on which I can do anything that I want. (Some developers
>treat it that way but that doesn't make it legitimate GEDCOM). There are
>distinctions that I can make in a GEDCOM file and others that I cannot.
[snip]

Hi, Bob:

Actually, I have read the GEDCOM spec recently, using a link you provided.
Not all of it, but a large part. And I even understand that the original
purpose of GEDCOM was to permit automated processing of the
father/mother/child links that are at the heart of the LDS' religious
activities regarding genealogy. All the rest of this "stuff" has been
tacked on to a framework not designed to support it. But fair, bad, or
awful, GEDCOM is the best we have for the moment for transferring data
between different programs or systems. Your only choices are to support it
the best you can; to provide an attractive and effective alternative; or to
condemn the best program currently available to a niche role in the future.
I'm too old for another major program switch, so I'm rooting for TMG.
Provided. . . . .

I understand that you can't use the BAPL or BAPM tags in GEDCOM for a
witness to a baptism. But I certainly hope you don't mean that GEDCOM 5.5
affirmatively prohibits any mention of a baptism event in any way - except
for the principal using one of those two GEDCOM tags? TMG, by providing for
witnesses to the "Baptism" tag, avoids the assumption that all persons
connected to a baptism event were themselves baptized. We should expect the
same distinction from the GEDCOM export function. That will require a
different tag than BAPL or BAPM - of course. The same general argument will
apply to most, if not all, TMG and GEDCOM tags.

I just tested using my own data set using all default values for GEDCOM
export. TMG 4.0d permits multiple "Biography" tags and exports them to
GEDCOM NOTE tags in the Individual Record. One could make the equivalent of
a TMG "Biography tag" out of the resulting text from a "Baptism" tag
witness sentence (I am talking about results, not programming methodology),
add all the disclaimer text one wants, and be in spec. To make the GEDCOM
information conform even more closely to the TMG data, I suppose one could
include the principal and all the other witnesses in a GEDCOM NOTE tag for
*each* witness (and the principal too). I wouldn't choose to do that - but
it would be possible.

It seems to me that misrepresenting data by omission is at least as bad as
misrepresenting it by inference. And as I and others have said, for us
abandoning GEDCOM is simply not an option without an alternative in hand.
For us, *that* is the armchair flying. So we want what we have to "put up
with" to at least be as good as it *can* be.

*STILL* thinking at the keyboard, but not much longer tonight.

Darrell


Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter currently in exile in Addison, Illinois



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