GEDCOM 5.5.1

[mezentia]

In November 2019, the current standard for GEDCOM became GEDCOM 5.5.1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDCOM

This may not be of much interest to many people, but may have a significant impact on those using software that adheres strictly to the current standard. The major issue that I have discovered is in GEDCOM 5.5.1 is that it disallows Citations of any form on all NOTE structures, including record level NOTE fields in any record type, FACT level NOTE fields, Citation level NOTE fields, and so on. This is something I do with my software on a fairly regular basis where a FACT and its accompanying SOURCE citation needs clarification as the relevence of the SOURCE citation may not be immediately clear, and the clarification is made via a NOTE to the SOURCE.

For those interested in all things GEDCOM, visit https://www.tamurajones.net, but be sure to have a ready supply of headache pills to hand  The appropriate bit from the GEDCOM 5.5.1 specification ( which can be downloaded from https://www.tamurajones.net/DownloadGEDCOM551AnnotatedEdition.xhtml) is on Page 37:

NOTE.SOUR.NOTE.SOUR...

The GEDCOM 5.5 errata sheet states that an optional reference to a SOUR record should be
added to the NOTE_STRUCTURE definition, like this:

[
n NOTE @<XREF:NOTE>@ {1:1}
+1 SOUR @<XREF:SOUR>@
|
n NOTE [<SUBMITTER_TEXT> | <NULL>] {1:1}
+1 [CONC|CONT] <SUBMITTER_TEXT> {0:M}
+1 SOUR @<XREF:SOUR>@
]

The GEDCOM 5.5.1 specification does not include the additional lines.

loop

FamilySearch probably realised that this addition was a bad idea, because it allowed notes to
have sources, which may have notes, which may sources, and so on, ad infinitum, and thus
includes the possibility of a loop.

GEDCOM 5.5.1 allows source citations on top-level NOTE records, and allows notes on
source records, but does not allow source citation on those SOUR.NOTE note records.

I am aware that at least one major new release of Family History software is forthcoming - one that I use - and it is with some trepidation that I will upgrade in case it will embody the changes detailed above. As I have a very substantial number of people in my file, tracking down all the instances where I have annotated source citations will be time consuming to say the least.

[GrahamSimons]

This is well beyond my pay grade, but I would have thought it was possible to write a routine that sorted this out - after all a GEDCOM file can be read by just about any text editor. If there's a need for this, someone will take up the challenge.......

[mezentia]

The problem is that pretty well all of us are not the slightest bit interested in what underpins the software we use to record our family history. Until, of course, bits start not to work, or data gets lost, as a result of changes to the "standards" that are used. GEDCOM is not a de jure but a de facto standard belonging to the LDS. Unlike de jure standards that have national or international bodies that govern them that can be lobbied, the LDS I suspect are rather a law unto themselves, and please excuse me if I seem to be rather cynical, I suspect their objectives in defining GEDCOM do not always necessarily align with the requirements of family historians as they are probably more interested in consanguinity than the holistic approach of us. Having said that, and having had previous experience of standards such as ODETTE and EDIFACT, I think that a revision could be formulated that allows a note to be linked to a source citation with a limit placed on the number of links or depth of recursion. I cannot claim to be an expert in GEDCOM syntax (life is to short) but a syntactical construct ought to be possible to accommodate the usage of annotated citations that is allowed under version 5.5, with the conditions suggested above.

[Mart 'n' Al]

EDIFACT brings back memories.

Martin