#752 Masonic Connection

[John Stevenson]

Would be nice if there was a place to show if the person was a Mason, an Odd Fellow, Elk, etc. I understand that Masonic Lodges in several states are preparing databases of all their members, past and present and will be making them available to the public.

[Laie Techie]

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I don't think GEDCOM 5.5 provides a simple method of stating group affiliation. I think you have to either introduce a custom tag or use the generic EVENT tag with appropriate TYPE and CORP tags.

[Greg Roach]

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John,

With the latest version of PGV, you can use a custom FACT for this. (You may need to add FACT to the list of INDI tags on the gedcom config page first.)

If you add a FACT and set the "Type" to Mason, you should get the functionality you are after. This would be the correct way to store such information.

Can we close this one?

[John Stevenson]

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I know of quite a few cemeteries that have sections for Masons, Odd Fellows, Elks, etc. and even one mountain cemetery that is only for Odd Fellows and their families. I also know that some Masonic Lodges have organized records of their past members and I think it would be great that we have a standardized section where they could be added and easily noted so that viewers don't have to look at every note in a family site just to find out if there were members of these clubs.

We do have sections for schools that is organized like FACTS, but this is not exactly user friendly and does not show the information very clear...i.e, one would put College Name in a section for Company).

Some families had generations of Masons...Elks, etc. Would be nice to be able to see a lineage with this.

[Greg Roach]

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The correct way (i.e. as per GEDCOM specs) to record this is like this:

1 FACT Member
2 TYPE Odd Fellow
2 DATE BET XXX AND YYY
2 SOUR etc.

This will display with "Odd Fellow" in the left hand column, under birth, death, etc.

You can enter this through the PGV gui.

If you want to create a custom tag for this, (such as _MASON), then add an entry for it in the languages/facts.en.php and then also add it to the list of individual facts in the gedcom configuration page.

If you need something more than this, can you tell us what functionality you are after.