PhpGedView / Discussion / Help: Add facts to Notes, Sources and MM??????

Hi Arne,

No, you are right to the point. I am confused by the difference between a. what I think PGV should do/show and b. what it really does.
I'll try to explain a bit more what I mean, perhaps you already know all this, but it completes my view on how things are.
Yes, you can add a note to a family. But that is done in family.php and not in individual.php. I'll try to explain, and John, please correct me if I'm wrong.
A family-record is a container for two or more individuals, who together are a family. In the familyrecord, there are pointers to individuals, also stating the role they have in that family (husband, wife, child).
To add more information to that family, it's possible to add several types of other records in the container: mainly details of marriage (like date and place), source-citations and notes. Also you can add MM-items like a marriagephotograph (although that's not supported in PAF).
Likewise, there is an individual-container, where all kinds of information and facts can be added. Limiting this to the problem I have with PGV:
A person can have a Note. This note is connected directely to the person and not to a fact or whatever. To my understanding, nothing is (on a lower level) connected to that note. In PGV however, it's possible to connect a source-citation to the note. So there I'm lost for the first time....
A person can have direct source-citations, to point to sources where the person is mentioned. To my understanding, nothing is connected (on a lower level) to that citation. In PGV however, it's possible to add a note to a source-citation. Lost again....
A person can have MM-items. Again to my understanding, nothing is connected (on a lower level) to the MM-connection. In PGV it's possible to add a note and a source-citation to the MM-connection. 3rd time....
A person can have many facts, like birth, death, etc. To indicate where the info came from, it's possible to connect that fact to a source, by a source citation. In PGV it's possible to add a note to that fact too. Because notes are only known on person-level and not on fact-level, I'm not sure this is correct.

What I just said, is all related to the "add ....." buttons on the various tabs on the individual-screen.
My other remark in my earlier post was about the text with these buttons, "add .... to fact". This was wrong, because notes, sources and MM on the tabs are not connected to facts but to the individual. Meanwhile this is already corrected (thnx Jans).

I hope this brings a bit more clarity to what I mentioned earlier :-)

Boudewijn.

I am going to first point you to the GEDCOM 5.5 spec here http://www.gendex.com/gedcom55/55gctoc.htm
because I will be refering to it in answer to your question.

The reason for the incorrect labeling was just me trying to keep changes in the lang files to a minimal while I worked on the new editing features that most of the PGV communitiy aren't going to use yet.

It is important to distinguish between "Sources" and "Source Citations." A citation links a source to particular gedcom record. This allows you to use the same source many times throughout your gedcom.

Notes and Sources can be circular because a note can have a source citation and a source can have a note. Here is the definition of a note structure in the GEDCOM 5.5 spec:
n @<XREF:NOTE>@ NOTE <SUBMITTER_TEXT> {1:1}
    +1 [ CONC | CONT] <SUBMITTER_TEXT> {0:M}
    +1 <<SOURCE_CITATION>> {0:M}
    +1 REFN <USER_REFERENCE_NUMBER> {0:M}
      +2 TYPE <USER_REFERENCE_TYPE> {0:1}
    +1 RIN <AUTOMATED_RECORD_ID> {0:1}
    +1 <<CHANGE_DATE>> {0:1}

Here is the Source structure:
n @<XREF:SOUR>@ SOUR {1:1}
    +1 DATA        {0:1}
      +2 EVEN <EVENTS_RECORDED> {0:M}
        +3 DATE <DATE_PERIOD> {0:1}
        +3 PLAC <SOURCE_JURISDICTION_PLACE> {0:1}
      +2 AGNC <RESPONSIBLE_AGENCY> {0:1}
      +2 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>> {0:M}
    +1 AUTH <SOURCE_ORIGINATOR> {0:1}
      +2 [CONT|CONC] <SOURCE_ORIGINATOR> {0:M}
    +1 TITL <SOURCE_DESCRIPTIVE_TITLE> {0:1}
      +2 [CONT|CONC] <SOURCE_DESCRIPTIVE_TITLE> {0:M}
    +1 ABBR <SOURCE_FILED_BY_ENTRY> {0:1}
    +1 PUBL <SOURCE_PUBLICATION_FACTS> {0:1}
      +2 [CONT|CONC] <SOURCE_PUBLICATION_FACTS> {0:M}
    +1 TEXT <TEXT_FROM_SOURCE> {0:1}
      +2 [CONT|CONC] <TEXT_FROM_SOURCE> {0:M}
    +1 <<SOURCE_REPOSITORY_CITATION>> {0:1}
    +1 <<MULTIMEDIA_LINK>> {0:M}
    +1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>> {0:M}
    +1 REFN <USER_REFERENCE_NUMBER> {0:M}
      +2 TYPE <USER_REFERENCE_TYPE> {0:1}
    +1 RIN <AUTOMATED_RECORD_ID> {0:1}
    +1 <<CHANGE_DATE>> {0:1}

And here is the definition of a source citation:
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}

In order for PGV to work with multiple GEDCOM formats it allows you to be very liberal with how you encode things. It would naturally be a mistake to have a Note with a source that has a note pointing to the same note, but it is possible to do in the GEDCOM spec.

There are only a few main level 0 gedcom records: Families (FAM), individuals (INDI), Sources (SOUR), Notes (NOTE), MultiMedia (OBJE), Repositories (REPO), and Submitters (SUBM). The most important of these being the FAM, INDI, and SOUR. The others, NOTE, OBJE, REPO, SUBM, all get dumped into the "other" category.

Families can have as level 1 subrecords:
Husband, Wife, Children, Source Citations, Notes, Media, and family events.

Individuals can have as level 1 subrecords:
Names, Sex, Individual Events, Attributes, Notes, Source Citations, and Media.

Family Events, Individual Events, and Individual attributes are all defined to have <<EVENT_DETAIL>> which looks like this:
n TYPE <EVENT_DESCRIPTOR> {0:1}
n DATE <DATE_VALUE> {0:1}
n <<PLACE_STRUCTURE>> {0:1}
n <<ADDRESS_STRUCTURE>> {0:1}
n AGE <AGE_AT_EVENT> {0:1}
n AGNC <RESPONSIBLE_AGENCY> {0:1}
n CAUS <CAUSE_OF_EVENT> {0:1}
n <<SOURCE_CITATION>> {0:M}
n <<MULTIMEDIA_LINK>> {0:M}
n <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>> {0:M}

So events can also have Notes, Source Citations, and Media objects attached to them.

How you encode something all depends on what you are trying to convey in your encoding and to what level of sourcing you are trying to conform. There are many ways to do it.

If you wanted to present your findings as professional research, every fact or event must have a source citation detailing where you received the information for that fact and every family should have sources detailing how the relationships in that family where obtained. These are loose standards defined by profession genealogical societies.

I am designing PGV and the ResearchLog to be very powerful and allow you to encode things in many ways. But I am going to try to encourage users, through the user interface design, to follow professional genealogy standards.

Now lets look at an example, suppose you recently found a birth certificate for your grandfather that you wanted to put into his record.

Now comes your first decision. Is your grandfather's birth certificate itself a new level 0 SOUR source record, or should it be referenced using a generic Birth Certificate SOUR record? The answer is completely up to you or completely up to the limitations of your Genealogy program. Though PGV doesn't yet support the creation of new sources, it will not limit you to one way or another.

My personal preference would be to have a generic birth certificate source and put the details of my grandfather's birth certificate in the source citation. That way I can easily find all of the people in my gedcom who I have birth certificates for by looking at the birth certificate SOUR record.

The next decision is where to put the citation. You can cite the source at level 0 in the main INDI record. Or you could cite it at the BIRT event record. My personal preference would be to cite it at the BIRT event.

The next decision is where to attach the multimedia object for a digital scan of the birth certificate. You could attach it to the INDI record. You could attach it to the birth certificate SOUR record. You could attach it to the BIRT event record. You could also attach it to the source citation wherever you may have put that.

My personal preference would be to put the source citation on the BIRT birth event of my grandfathers individual record with the media object on the source citation.

Here is what the gedcom would look like:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Grandfather /FINLAY/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 JAN 1900
2 PLAC , Coshocton, Ohio
2 SOUR @S1@
3 DATA
4 TEXT Birth Certificate for Grandfather Finlay.
5 CONT Born January 1 1900... (the rest of the
5 CONC document transcription)
3 OBJE @O1@
0 @S1@ SOUR
1 ABBR Birth Certificate
1 TITL Birth Certificate
0 @O1@ OBJE
1 TITL Grandfather Finlay Birth Certificate
1 FILE C:/genealogy/media/finlay line/g_finlay_birt_cert.jpg

This encoding allows me to reuse the "Birth Certificate" source and the "Grandfather Finlay Birth Certificate" image in other places. Suppose I wanted to use this same birth certifate as a source to the father-son relationship of my Great-Grandfather Finlay. I can either put this as an level 0 source citaion on Great-Grandfather Finlay's INDI record, or I could put it in the Family record.

Now we have discovered the great power of the GEDCOM 5.5 format. It allows you to encode things in the best way for the unique genealogy you are dealing with. But you also find its greatest weakness, in that its power breeds ambiguity. There is not "one way" to do something and that bothers a lot of people, especially programmers who are trying to design an effecient program. It has also caused programs to create gedcoms that are incompatible with each other.

From my perspective, the weakness is not in the GEDCOM 5.5 format, but in the programmers who are trying to implement it.

Anyway, I hope this answers your question and that you can see that I am just trying to support all that the GEDCOM spec can do.

--John

Add facts to Notes, Sources and MM??????

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Add facts to Notes, Sources and MM??????