Commonwealth Network

The following refers to data entered to TMC Families with LINKS:

Every individual needs a unique ID. We implement this using the REFN tag in the GEDCOM. The general form of a unique ID is: ownerid-individualid.

TMC Families assign the ownerid. The originator (i.e. participant) of the database assigns the individualid. It is up to the orginator (i.e. participant) to ensure that the indivualids are, in fact, unique. SOFTLINKS will check this when data is imported, but cannot compensate if it isn't correct.

Example 1.

Camilla von Massenbach's ownerid is c.
John Mason's 's individualid is mason1.
Thus, John Mason's unique ID is c-mason1.

The GEDCOM looks like this:

0 @I69@ INDI
1 NAME John Alfred/Mason
1 REFN c-mason1

HTML Markup

The originator (i.e. participant) can use any HTML markup he/she likes in text fields in the GEDCOM. Note that SOFTLINKS does not check the markup, so if it is wrong it may affect other elements on the page.

GEDCOM Markup

We also use pseudo-HTML markups for special purposes.
• For historical reasons all such markups start <BEN_.
  To date they are the following:
  
  
  • !BEN_FAMILY familyname {Whoever} (space) {/of Wherever/}
  • <BEN_DATE EVENT=BIRTH DATE=(if neccessary say) "25 MAR 60 BC">
  • <BEN_DATE EVENT=DEATH=(if neccessary say) "17 JUN 86 AD"">
  • !BEN_TITLE {Lord or Earl or whatever}(Space) {/of Wherever/}
  • !BEN_INHERITED TITLE
  • <BEN_SOURCES> {followed by whatever, incl. html hotlinks}
  • <BEN_LIFET>
  • <BEN_LINK XREF=uniqueid [MAIN]>
  • <BEN_XREF XREF=uniqueid>
  • <BEN_TODO> {followed by whatever requires action, incl. links}

• They appear in the"Biographical information" BIO record as follows:
  
  
  1. as, in & for the "brief biography" section at the top of a "Family Member" page [sample],
     
  2. following thereon with the prefix <BEN_LIFET> to appear in the section "Life & Times, etc".
  3. thereafter in BIO - with the prefix <BEN_SOURCES> -- freeform text is allowed for the "Sources, etc." section. Note that sources are also retrieved from the GEDCOM source data, and merged into the free text sources.
  4. thereafter (and/or indeed anywhere) relevant links with the prefix <BEN_XREF XREF=uniqueid>

Example 2.

1. At the beginning, as brief biographical information, is entered this:
   "... of Hammersmith, London"
   
2. To go under "Life & Times, etc." :
   "<BEN_LIFET> He was a ne'er do well"
   
3. To go under "Sources, etc.".
   "<BEN_SOURCES> Family Archivist [link to his "Family-Page" <BEN_XREF XREF=uniqueid>], British Museum Mss.071BB"
   

Inter-database links

If the same "Family Members" exists under more than one unique ID, they must be linked together. One instance of the individual, i.e. "Family Member", must be considered to be the "main" instance. All instances are marked up to point to each other. The main instance is also identified. Although we could permit just subsidiary instances to point to the main one, we require all to point to each other so that we have a consistency check. The markup for this is as follows: <BEN_LINK XREF=uniqueid [MAIN]>. The MAIN keyword is used in subsidiary individuals to point at the main individual.

Example 3.

Suppose three individuals with unique IDs: x-abc123, x-def456 and x-xyz678. They are really the same individual.

If x-xyz678 is the main instance, then

(1) x-abc123 would have this in the biography:

      <BEN_LINK XREF=x-def456>
      <BEN_LINK XREF=x-xyz678 MAIN>

(2) x-def455 would have this:

      <BEN_LINK XREF=x-abc123>
      <BEN_LINK XREF=x-xyz678 MAIN>

(3) x-xyz678 would have this:

      <BEN_LINK XREF=x-abc123>
      <BEN_LINK XREF=x-def456>

References to individuals (i.e. "Family Members")

In order to refer to other individuals -- e.g. in a biography -- we use the this markup:

      <BEN_XREF XREF=uniqueid>

When SOFTLINKS converts to HTML, it converts these references to the person's name and dates, and hotlinks the name to the appropriate page.





Family grouping by "Family (sur-)Name", etc.

SOFTLINKS does its best to organise individuals, i.e. "Family Members", into "Families", but it isn't always possible for it to do so.

To create a "Family" manually, we use a pseudo-person to represent the "Family", whose name is !BEN_FAMILY familyname.

The members of the family are then linked by a custom GEDCOM event to the family. The GEDCOM defining this event is as follows:

2 EVEN BEN_F_MEMB
3 LANG ENGLISH
3 CLASS personal
3 NAME ben Member of Family
3 AKA Member of Family
3 AKA Mb
3 AKA Memb
3 ROLE MEMBER
4 NAME Member
4 PRIN Y
4 NOTE TEMPLATE
5 CONT BEN FM.
3 ROLE FAMILY
4 NAME Family
4 PRIN Y
4 NOTE TEMPLATE
5 CONT BEN F.

An example of this event in action:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME John Alfred/Mason/
1 REFN c-mason1
1 RFN 1
1 BEN_F_MEMB
2 ROLE MEMBER @E253@
0 @I151@ INDI
1 NAME !BEN_FAMILY/Mason/
1 REFN c-masonfamily151
1 RFN 151
0 @E253@ EVEN BEN_F_MEMB
1 NAME ben Member of Family
1 DATE 
1 CHAN
2 DATE 6 MAR 1996
1 ROLE MEMBER @I1@
2 PRIN Y
1 ROLE FAMILY @I151@
2 PRIN Y

It is not necessary to link all "Family Members", i.e. members of a "Family" - SOFTLINKS will use its usual rules for creating "Families" to pull in "Family Members"

Note

We are aware that this event is in violation of the GEDCOM spec -- the event name should start with an underscore. Unfortunately, we'd already done quite a lot of work before realising this. If it really upsets anyone, we are prepared to change it.

Practical considerations

It is not possible for us to say, in general, how you can generate this GEDCOM - it depends on the package you use.

The HTML and pseudo-HTML markup should be no problem. Simply enter them into the biography.

The events are trickier. We know how to do this in ROOTS IV - we are working on producing example databases and instructions to demonstrate them. We'll probably make these available as GEDCOM, and there is some chance that packages which understand Event GEDCOM will create our events when these files are imported.

Unique IDs are also a potential problem - many packages don't give any way to enter one. We may define some more markup as an alternative way of entering them.

Even if Event GEDCOM cannot be supported by your package, SOFTLINKS will do a reasonable job on your data, so don't despair. We may be able to find other ways to record these events in the future.

Futures

We are working on events to support titles. These are considerably more complex than families, so it may be a while before we can release details of how these are done. Another one we are considering is membership of organisations (clubs, businesses, schools - whatever!). Let us know if there are other kinds of events you would like to see support for.