- Sharing
Genealogical Information with your Relatives
·
Which program do they
use?
·
What type of disk
drives do they have?
·
What general field
usage have they adopted?
·
Are there full or
partial dates?
·
Do the citations for
US places include counties?
Streets? Cemetery names?
·
Are nicknames used in
place of “real” names?
·
Are sources cited?
·
RESIdes or ADDRess?
·
Will you both use
CHRIsten?
·
How will you document
sources?
·
How will you document
the research of others?
The GENTECH GEDCOM TestBook Project is relevant to many users. It is an effort to document the exchange of
information from a specific source between a number of popular programs. A variety of well known software products
are included in the study.
Agree with your relative
what information you will convert and how (normally, this means saying things
like, "I’ll put in the counties after I get it from you").
There are simply no
effective routines for merging data sets at present. The problems of identity, merging methods and data formats are
too new for generalized solutions to be available in the marketplace. Good theoretical solutions don’t even exist.
TestBook Project Purpose
and Methodology
The purpose of this
exercise is to test as many aspects of the GEDCOM 5.5 standard as
possible. It requires several stages.
The Office of the GEDCOM
Coordinator at the Family History Department has prepared a GEDCOM 5.5 grammar
file and a program to evaluate a GEDCOM files conformance to the 5.5
standard. It reports on tag exceptions,
syntax errors, cross reference errors and identifies tag extensions created by
a software developer. A control GEDCOM,
using the test data and edited to meet the official GEDCOM 5.5 grammar, is
imported. Examining the results show
the program’s ability to read the various GEDCOM tags at the different
hierarchical levels.
This data is entered into
the program under review. Once data
entry is complete, a GEDCOM file is created.
This file is compared with the original data and the GEDCOM tag of each
item recorded. Any item not being
transferred by GEDCOM is noted. The
GEDCOM is then checked for conformance to the 5.5 standard.
After evaluating a
program’s ability to import the control GEDCOM the GEDCOM file created by the
program under review is then imported.
The resulting database is then checked to determine what tags imported
and to the fields used. From this
information some general conclusions may be drawn as to the receiving program’s
ability to import data from the exporting program.
Excerpt from the story
in the GEDCOM TestBook:
Reginald Edward Smythe was
born August 3rd 1780 at Little Chesterford, Essex, the third son and fifth
child of Sir Charles Smythe by his first wife, Jane Edwards. Sir Charles was a successful East India
merchant and maintained residences in Little Chesterford and London. His staff was composed of native Indians
whose service had impressed him during his years in India.
Reginald’s life was
destined to be a difficult one from his birth.
His mother died during childbirth.
His father, while providing for the child, seemed to favor him less than
the other children, possibly blaming him for his mother’s death. The newborn Reginald was turned over to the
wife of Sir Charles’ gardener who would wet nurse the child and serve as a
nanny. This woman, Anna Chordray, was a
Hindu of the Sudra caste. Sir Charles
did not attend the christening of Reginald at St Margaret’s Church in Ickleton,
Cambridgeshire, leaving Anna to attend to that detail.
On reaching the age of six
Reginald was sent to Ridgeway’s, a public school in Braintree. He would remain there except for holiday
periods, for the next 10 years. At age
17 Reginald was admitted to King’s College at Cambridge. He matriculated four
years later with a B.A. Returning to
the family home, he devoted much of his time to riding, cricket and to
Elizabeth, the daughter of their neighbour, Sir Rodney Conyer, Knight. Reginald realized that as the third son, he
would inherit little from his father and his best hope for a bright future lay
in marriage to a potential heiress.
Although Elizabeth was not of legal age Reginald contrived to obtain a
marriage license through friends in Cambridge.
With the requirement for the reading of Banns removed, Reginald and
Elizabeth hastened to the parish of Burnt Pelham in the neighbouring county of
Hertfordshire where the curate married the couple. Elizabeth’s father, Sir Rodney, got wind of the couple’s plans
and hastened to the church arriving as the ceremony concluded. Threatening to whip Reginald with in an inch
of his life, he forcibly returned his daughter to her home. Several weeks later, thanks to his
friendship with the Bishop of London, the marriage was annulled.
--- excerpted from the
GENTECH GEDCOM TestBook
The TestBook project can
be researched at www.gentech.org.
Software that merges data uses some combination of the
following steps.
·
MERGING DATABASES – combining the information in both data
bases.
·
MERGING INDIVIDUALS -- combining the duplicated people.
·
MERGING THE REST –
combining places, sources, and any other information.
The Master Genealogist is a trademark of Wholly Genes, Inc -
www.whollygenes.com
Family Treasures is a trademark of Family Technologies -
www.famtech.com
Corel Family Tree Suite is a trademark of Corel Corp -
familytree.corel.com