[Gramps-devel] GEDCOM and sourceref

[<bm...@ca...>]

Hi,

I investigated the GEDCOM on why I have these source/sourceref problems in the
GRAMPS workflow, which GEDCOM users apparently don't have (??).

I think over the different version we diverted from what GEDCOM meant in a
direction allowed by the GEDCOM datamodel that is not favorable for genealogy
research.

The GEDCOM diagrams: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55model1.gif
and http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55model2.gif

So in GEDCOM one has a citation, which is in GRAMPS a sourceref. What does it
say on citation:
"The <<SOURCE_CITATION>> structure is placed subordinate to the fact being
cited. It is generally best if the source citation contains only information
specific to the fact being cited and then points to the more general
description of the source, defined in a SOURCE_RECORD. This reduces redundancy,
provides a way of controlling the GEDCOM record size, and more closely
represents the normalized data model. " See
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55gcint.htm

So the problem I have that in GRAMS information becomes overly redundant is
mentioned. The sourceref/citation should contain *as little as possible*
information, but in GRAMS it contains: Date, volume, Text and notes.

Furthermore the GEDCOM text says:
"Systems that represent sources using the AUTHor, TITLe, PUBLication, and
REPOsitory descriptions can and should always pass this information in GEDCOM
using the SOURce record pointed to by the <<SOURCE_CITATION>>. "

GRAMPS is such a system so all this info should be in the source record?

However, this is GEDCOM, so the actual implementation goes somewhat counter to
the above assertions. On
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55gcch2.htm#SOURCE_CITATION we
find the citation structure as relevant for GRAMPS:
  n SOUR @<XREF:SOUR>@    /* pointer to source record */  {1:1}
    +1 PAGE <WHERE_WITHIN_SOURCE>  {0:1}
    +1 EVEN <EVENT_TYPE_CITED_FROM>  {0:1}
      +2 ROLE <ROLE_IN_EVENT>  {0:1}
    +1 DATA        {0:1}
      +2 DATE <ENTRY_RECORDING_DATE>  {0:1}
      +2 TEXT <TEXT_FROM_SOURCE>  {0:M}
        +3 [ CONC | CONT ] <TEXT_FROM_SOURCE>  {0:M}
    +1 QUAY <CERTAINTY_ASSESSMENT>  {0:1}
    +1 <<MULTIMEDIA_LINK>>  {0:M}
    +1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>>  {0:M}

So, we suddenly do see that all sort of data which can be kept in the source
record also are possibly kept redundant in the source citation.
The source record eg
(http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55gcch2.htm#SOURCE_RECORD) also
contains the text (TEXT FROM SOURCE) field.

This is just broken design in my opinion.
What I want is to add a citation to an event/object, and that then points me to
specific part of the source that is of relevance, without redundancy.

So we should do what GEDCOM meant but didn't create in GEDCOM 5.5: add citation
to objects; that is a link to the specific page/position in the source.
In GEDCOM this is implemented by storing the page/position in the object itself;
whereas once one has a separate object, this can be simplified and streamlined
as part of a source.

Benny

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