TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2004-07 > 1089119651


From: Tim Powys-Lybbe <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Spouses even though no marriage shown?
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 14:14:11 +0100
References: <30273817.1089062030877.JavaMail.root@wamui09.slb.atl.earthlink.net> <019901c462f5$8bc52840$6401a8c0@charliexv>
In-Reply-To: <019901c462f5$8bc52840$6401a8c0@charliexv>


In message of 6 Jul, "Jim Byram" <> wrote:

> Just to provide an underpinning for this discussion... Here's an example
> of what real data and output would look like in Generations 8.5a.
>
> Create a new database and add a male and a female to a Family Card. There is
> no other data. The Marriage flag is unset. If you open and save the Edit
> Family screen, the Marriage flag will be set to Married. You can also set
> the Marriage flag to Unmarried or Common law.

Which marriage flag? None that the user has any knowledge of, that is
for sure.

You are calling an internal piece of data, that the user cannot access
and which I do not believe that Generations uses itself, a marriage
flag. Whereas the data that the user can see is consistently set to
Marriage.

We have yet to establish that this data that you call Marriage Flag is
used anywhere in Generations.

>
> Find / Anything / Couple
> Filter is: Marriage Status Is Marriage
> The report returns the couple if the Marriage flag is unset or set to
> Marriage.

Further if you set one of the columns of the report to display
"Marriage Status", both marriages display the same status of
"Marriage". So any "Marriage Flag" is set to Marriage.

>
> Find / Anything / People
> Filter is: # of Spouses Equal 1
> The report returns both individuals irrespective of the Marriage flag
> setting.
>
> Reports are limited with this little data. Run from the male perspective.
>
> Person Sheet
> Name Man
> Spouses:
> 1 Woman
> This is the report output irrespective of the Marriage flag setting.
>
> Family Group Sheet
> Name Man
> Spouse Woman
> This is the report output irrespective of the Marriage flag setting.

But I have established above that the Marriage Status is set to marriage
in both cases. So the marriage flag as seen by the user is the same in
both cases. So these reports are the same in both cases.

>
> Generations Gedcom export
> Family record
> 0 @F1@ FAM
> 1 HUSB @I1@
> 1 WIFE @I2@
>
> This is the export irrespective of the setting of the marriage flag.

I will agree that this is the GEDCOM export irrespective of the Marriage
Status (sorry to be pedantic, but the Generations user has no knowledge
of this bit of data that you call Marriage Flag). The interesting thing
to me is that the GEDCOM exported completely fails to include the
Marriage Status. I do not know enough about the GEDCOM standards to
say whether there is a tag for Marriage Status to be exported but it
clearly shows that Generations has, in common with many other programs,
severe limitations in exporting GEDCOM.

I presume this sort of limitation is one of the reasons why Wholly Genes
decided, thank goodness, to develop the Gen-Bridge program. Certainly
I have been aware for years that I could no export all my data from
Generations via GEDCOM and that therefore I had to continue to use
Generations. One might even wonder if this was not a conspiracy by the
Generations people!

> This is the typical ambiguous GEDCOM family record that includes no
> information about the relationship of the man and woman in the record.
>
> The ambiguity would be even clearer with a child.
> 0 @F1@ FAM
> 1 HUSB @I1@
> 1 WIFE @I2@
> 1 CHIL @13@
> The man and woman could be married, unmarried, have a common law marriage, a
> casual relationship or the child could be the result of a crime committed by
> the unrelated but known male.

Fully agreed. This follows from the lack of the Marriage Status in the
GEDCOM.

>
> Did I omit any other examples that would help?

This discussion started because the Gen-Bridge program was omitting
couples, not because the GEDCOM was inadequate, which many of us knew
anyway.

But I thank you for telling us so clearly of a real limitation of
Generations' GEDCOM. This is a dire warning to anyone that some GEDCOMs
cannot be relied on.

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

This thread: