Re: Use of XML?

Ian Goddard wrote:
> 
> Let me give you an example of what I mean by ambiguities.  I would have 
> no problems in getting GEDCOM to represent my ggg-father and his 
> descendants.  However when I come to his ancestry I have a problem.  I 
> know his father's name, the date of his burial and his age at death.  I 
> know his mother's name, the date of her burial but not her age at death.

>  I have a copy of the registry record of their marriage.  However there 
> are two individuals of the same name as the father born in the same year

> and his age and date of death do not enable me to separate them so 
> either of these children are candidates.  What's more, for one of these 
> children there were two individuals of the appropriate name and 
> generation to have been his father.  In other words I have three 
> possible lines to take my ggg-father back two generations.  Except I 
> don't - I have six because there are also two individuals with the same 
> name as the mother.  Admittedly one was somewhat young but not 
> impossibly so.  As far as I'm aware the nearest that GEDCOM could come 
> to representing this would be as a set of unlinked genealogical 
> fragments, one starting my gggg-parents marriage and working forwards, 
> three others representing the alternative lines for my gggg-father and 
> two representing the alternative lines of my gggg-mother.

Take a look at the ASSO structure (p. 29 of the 5.5 do***ent). 
You can use it to represent any type of relation****p, such as 
possible father/son/spouse/whatever.  Just because your software 
doesn't use it doesn't mean GEDCOM doesn't have it.

-- 
Thomas M. Sommers -- tms@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 -- AB2SB