Hi Tony, > Thanks for posting this Enno because you're very wrong here. FHISO standards > are developed collaboratively. There is no such thing as "my model". Neither > I, nor any other individual, is developing a standard that all others are > expected to use. > > All members are invited to list requirements, recommendations, and even > proposals for design elements. If you're not there then how can FHISO > accommodate your own personal requirements? I'm not there, because I know that the governing body of the FHISO consists of people who spent most of their time rejecting other peoples ideas on better gedcom, like the idea of personas. When you want standards, you need people who are open minded, i.e. that they accept that someone wants to use a technique that they personally reject as a waste of time. FHISO is not like that. Look: I personally think that putting templates from evidence explained into genealogy is a waste of time. Programs that implement it scare me away, but I know that if enough people support it, it will be part of the standard, so I will have to accept that it's there. In better gedcom, I saw that people rejected a simple model like DeadEnds, saying that they saw no need to collect data, and that nominal record linking was a silly idea. And at the same time, they spent a lot of time advocating things that I think are silly too. My point is, if you believe in cooperation, you can't reject things that way. You will have to accept that there are parts in the model or standard that you will probably never use yourself. If you can't, as some members of the FHISO have proven on the better gedcom wiki, and on stack exchange, you don't belong in a standards organisation. And as long as these people are there, I won't join. cheers, Enno

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:21:28 +0100, Enno Borgsteede <ennoborg@gmail.com> wrote: >My point is, if you believe in cooperation, you can't reject things that >way. You will have to accept that there are parts in the model or >standard that you will probably never use yourself. If you can't, as >some members of the FHISO have proven on the better gedcom wiki, and on >stack exchange, you don't belong in a standards organisation. > >And as long as these people are there, I won't join. > >cheers, > >Enno If you put 2 strong people together they will often disagree. Add a few more people and it becomes disagreeable politics or the opportunity to market and sell different genealogy programs. Your exchange with Tony perfectly illustrates the point I was trying to make. I'll add a third person - I never heard of FHISO before. Hugh

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:41:41 -0600, Charlie Hoffpauir <invalid@invalid.com> wrote: >>Actually in my data base the difference in name and nickname is not >>obvious. I suppose my quote marks indicate "name called" to be a >>little more precise. >> >>That may not be sufficient for purists but according to my wife I have >>some other impurities, too. So far I don't view hearing loss as a >>problem. :) >> >>Hugh >'I realize that. My reference above (Given or Nickname contains) was >only an attempt to exactly duplicate what one would see as the choice >on the RM screen. So RM at that point doesn't care if you have the >item in the name field or the nickname field... it will search for >whatever you put in the "contains" box. Roger. I deleted my last paid version of RM and I'm using the freebie 6.0. I maintain 5 DBs - 3 are to help friends. One is for me and the other can be linked by preponderance of evidence, not proof, and I have not done that yet. It would link to an early probable ancestor but be easy to unlink. I use RM to keep track of DBs other than my main one - I find it easier to switch programs than to switch within one program when looking at 2 DBs. Color me odd! Hugh

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:29:33 -0500, singhals <singhals@erols.com> wrote: >Legacy Family Tree and the associated charting program >apparently has an MtDNA chart/report. > >At least -- it's there in the menu to be chosen. > >Has anyone gotten it to give you report? (g) Instructions >welcomed within. > >I'm looking for a quick way to get a list of all the living >candidates for mtDNA samples from a specific (female) ancestor. > >Thanks! > >Cheryl In RM I'd just export a GEDCOM of all the Mitochondrial descendants, (That's one of the options under the GEDCOM export) then import that GEDCOM back into RM and produce a descendancy list. If you've already marked "living" then your job is done, if not, then you have a bit more selections to be done.

Hi Tony, > I'm afraid the sleight in my previous post was aimed at those annoying folks > who say: it's not possible (it is), it'll never work (it will) I'm happy to be one of those. I've seen many efforts to unite people on a single idea, and as far as I know, most have failed. And the reason why they failed is simple: When you design a model, it is based on your view of the world, i.e., something in your head. That's not some scientific truth, if that could exist, it's YOUR view. Now, when I look at your model, like I did last week in our RootsDev hangout, I see things that I like, things that look way too complicated for my purposes, and I miss a few things that are essential to ME. And when I tell you about these things, there's a fat chance that you think the same way about my ideas, and that's why it can't work. It's like wanting all people in the world to think the same, act the same, and I find that a frightening idea. Thinking about one model is like expecting that all operating systems use the same file system (they don't), all people follow the same religion (they don't), or economists to think alike (they don't). I believe in standards for interfaces, like HDMI, and USB, but I don't believe in a single model that rules all computers in the world. There is too much variety in people's ideas, and that's how I like it to be. As far as I'm concerned, people (and genealogy) benefit the most when you don't try to force a standard model upon them, which is why I will not join the FHISO. For me, it's just as bad an idea as the Euro. thanks, Enno

Legacy Family Tree and the associated charting program apparently has an MtDNA chart/report. At least -- it's there in the menu to be chosen. Has anyone gotten it to give you report? (g) Instructions welcomed within. I'm looking for a quick way to get a list of all the living candidates for mtDNA samples from a specific (female) ancestor. Thanks! Cheryl

"Enno Borgsteede" <ennoborg@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3c906$512f7062$5ed1100c$6320@cache60.multikabel.net... > Hi Tony, > >> I'm afraid the sleight in my previous post was aimed at those > annoying folks >> who say: it's not possible (it is), it'll never work (it will) > > I'm happy to be one of those. I've seen many efforts to unite people on a > single idea, and as far as I know, most have failed. And the reason why > they failed is simple: > > When you design a model, it is based on your view of the world, i.e., > something in your head. That's not some scientific truth, if that could > exist, it's YOUR view. > > Now, when I look at your model, like I did last week in our RootsDev > hangout, I see things that I like, things that look way too complicated > for my purposes, and I miss a few things that are essential to ME. > > And when I tell you about these things, there's a fat chance that you > think the same way about my ideas, and that's why it can't work. It's like > wanting all people in the world to think the same, act the same, and I > find that a frightening idea. > > Thinking about one model is like expecting that all operating systems use > the same file system (they don't), all people follow the same religion > (they don't), or economists to think alike (they don't). > > I believe in standards for interfaces, like HDMI, and USB, but I don't > believe in a single model that rules all computers in the world. There is > too much variety in people's ideas, and that's how I like it to be. > > As far as I'm concerned, people (and genealogy) benefit the most when you > don't try to force a standard model upon them, which is why I will not > join the FHISO. For me, it's just as bad an idea as the Euro. > > thanks, > > Enno > Thanks for posting this Enno because you're very wrong here. FHISO standards are developed collaboratively. There is no such thing as "my model". Neither I, nor any other individual, is developing a standard that all others are expected to use. All members are invited to list requirements, recommendations, and even proposals for design elements. If you're not there then how can FHISO accommodate your own personal requirements? Tony Proctor

Tony Proctor wrote: > > "Tim Powys-Lybbe"<tim@powys.org> wrote in message > news:mpro.mivsln1d7akow0095.tim@powys.org... >> On 27 Feb at 11:50, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote: >> >>> I've seen a lot of references to really old versions of GEDCOM. GEDCOM >>> 5.5.1 seems to satisfy my immediate needs[1], but has been in draft >>> status for a very long time. GEDCOM 6 is still a work in progress and >>> I'm not sure where GEDCOM-X is. What is the prognosis for the major >>> players to support at least GEDCOM 5.5.1 in UTF-8? >>> >>> [1] E.g., storing both a secular and a religous name, storing a >>> romanized transliteration of a name in a non-roman script, >>> storing a date in two different calendars. >> >> My opinion is a zilch prognosis. The problem with GEDCOM is that it >> makes it relatively easy to transfer a lot of the data between genealogy >> programs. But for the programmer this is not Good News; how much better >> to lock the user into their program by making GEDCOM transfers more >> difficult? >> >> Yo might get more mileage by asking your current program owners when >> _They_ are going to provide the above features. >> >> -- >> Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org >> for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/ > > Programmers would not benefit by locking people into a genealogical product > Tim. I'm sure you appreciate that genealogy relies on data sharing. Even if > someone doesn't want to benefit from someone else's research, they will > certainly want to pass on their own research to friends and family. > > If sharing is a fundamental tenet of genealogy then some mechanism to > exchange data accurately and in a vendor-neutral fashion is essential. > > GEDCOM became a de facto standard but it was never envisioned as that > originally. It now shows the fallacy of having a proprietary model which was > loosely-defined and has now been abandoned by its creator. Ideally, we > should have a community-defined model with a freely-available, high-quality > standard. > > This is what FHISO (http://fhiso.org) are all about. I have raised this > topic before in this group. Irrespective of the negativity and cup-half-full > mentality of some other folks in this group, such a standard will evolve. If > you want a say in its requirements, you really need to become a member. > > Tony Proctor > FHISO Organising Member Well, y'see, many of us half-a-cup types suffered through the years long process that ended up as GED5.5 It was intended to be a universal standard. But, turns out, FO users wanted FO to set the standard, FTM users wanted FTM's standards, UFT users wanted ... PAF users wanted ... ROOTS users wanted ... TFE users wanted ... Bottom line: universal standards can be promulgated, even agreed to, from here to Planet Rigel, but unless some entity somewhere has the muscle to impose compliance, there will be no universal compliance. See also: GED STAN 5.5 Cheryl

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:18:50 +0100, Kurt F <kurt.fredriksson@ieee.org> wrote: >I am a user of FTM since its DOS-time. But I stopped upgrading and I am >happy using FTM 2006. More power to those who prefer any version of FTM. Each is entitled to his personal preference. I think that preference is often what we have used for a long time. >I prefer to keep all information in my own system and not in any form of >cloud. I am not storing any pictures in the FTM-database. I can´t see >the advantage. I agree. But I have not come up to this century in a lot of respects. My pictures are stored in a folder, My Pictures. Why not? >I have looked at most of the other genealogy programs If I have not tried it I have not heard of it. >but stayed with a >program where I can concentrate on the research instead of finding out >HOW to do different tasks. I am at an age where continuing to learn hopefully delays the onset of my inability to learn. It's nice to see some new contributors here. It's a good place to ask questions and get answers. And even the most elementary questions, when asked for the umpteenth time, are treated with respect by the very knowledgeable ones here. >I´m using GreatFamily to produce web-pages and The Complete Genealogy >Reporter to produce reports to interested relatives. Some of us (and all of me) have never heard of those programs. Thanks for the hint. >BTW, I am a Swede and have most of my relatives here, but I am sticking >to English in my system. ...which brings us back full circle to genealogy. I am Haplo Group R1a1a. That group probably arose about 10,000 years ago in the Steppes, moved to central Europe and many went to the English Isles via Scandanavia. At that point there is a "slight gap" in my knowledge until 1790 when my GG Grand was born in NC or maybe 1693 when his possible/probable ancestor immigrated from somewhere. >My largest complain is >that it is impossible to get the dates according to ISO-standard, >YYYY-MM-DD. The closest FTM offers is DD-MM-YYYY. I have thought about that several times. In business the month and day would seem to be the most important. Decades ago I used February 28, 2013. I switched to the military method 28 Feb 2013 to avoid the comma. In genealogy I would say the year is more important. But in about 4 hours I think the time should be 1300, not 1 PM - that's CST, not Greenwich - or maybe it is UCT now. Hugh

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote: > On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:50:34 -0500, singhals<singhals@erols.com> > wrote: > > <Much snipped> >>>> It's hard to see how anything can actually adhere to the >>>> spec, because it several places it contradicts itself, but >>>> OK; still, I'd think it would let me SAY whether I wished to >>>> include ALL spouses or only direct-line ancestors. I did >>>> managed to pick a few to export, but for something larger >>>> than a 5-man sample, way too much manual effort. >>>> >>>> >>> Well, there is a bit of a learning cruve with using the selection >>> criteria, but it does work quite well and is really quite flexible. >>> >> >> Learning curbes are one thing, but I didn't see anything >> /to/ be learned ... >> > > File/Export > (People to export)Click then select and click on "Select from list" > In the window that opens, browse or type in the name of the person you > want to start the gedcom on, for me that's usually myself. > With that person highlighted , click on the tab that says "Mark Group" > Select one of the options, say descendants, then select whether you > want spouses, direct only, etc and for how many generations and click > OK > Hmmm...all I saw was EXPORT and no options. I'll look again when I'm back over there. > Now, those people are all marked for export.... but don't stop there. > You can repeat those steps and continue marking additional people > again clicking the "Mark group" tab and selecting different options > until you get everyone you want included. > As I said, it's a bit complicated, but enables a very selective > export, and once familiar withthe process, it goes very fast. > > That's the basic process. There's also an "UNMARK GROUP" tab where I > think you could first select everyone, and then selectively "exclude" > people, but I've never used that. That sounds like all the others I've used, but I sure didn't see anything that let me get selective in RM. Cheryl

"Charlie Hoffpauir" <invalid@invalid.com> wrote in message news:cnmui8lllu5qc8do2d3c77u17d1ahnmpm3@4ax.com... > On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:07:18 -0000, "Tony Proctor" > <tony@proctor_NoMore_SPAM.net> wrote: > >> >>"Tim Powys-Lybbe" <tim@powys.org> wrote in message >>news:mpro.mivsln1d7akow0095.tim@powys.org... >>> On 27 Feb at 11:50, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >>> <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote: >>> >>>> I've seen a lot of references to really old versions of GEDCOM. GEDCOM >>>> 5.5.1 seems to satisfy my immediate needs[1], but has been in draft >>>> status for a very long time. GEDCOM 6 is still a work in progress and >>>> I'm not sure where GEDCOM-X is. What is the prognosis for the major >>>> players to support at least GEDCOM 5.5.1 in UTF-8? >>>> >>>> [1] E.g., storing both a secular and a religous name, storing a >>>> romanized transliteration of a name in a non-roman script, >>>> storing a date in two different calendars. >>> >>> My opinion is a zilch prognosis. The problem with GEDCOM is that it >>> makes it relatively easy to transfer a lot of the data between genealogy >>> programs. But for the programmer this is not Good News; how much better >>> to lock the user into their program by making GEDCOM transfers more >>> difficult? >>> >>> Yo might get more mileage by asking your current program owners when >>> _They_ are going to provide the above features. >>> >>> -- >>> Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org >>> for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/ >> >>Programmers would not benefit by locking people into a genealogical >>product >>Tim. I'm sure you appreciate that genealogy relies on data sharing. Even >>if >>someone doesn't want to benefit from someone else's research, they will >>certainly want to pass on their own research to friends and family. >> >>If sharing is a fundamental tenet of genealogy then some mechanism to >>exchange data accurately and in a vendor-neutral fashion is essential. >> >>GEDCOM became a de facto standard but it was never envisioned as that >>originally. It now shows the fallacy of having a proprietary model which >>was >>loosely-defined and has now been abandoned by its creator. Ideally, we >>should have a community-defined model with a freely-available, >>high-quality >>standard. >> >>This is what FHISO (http://fhiso.org) are all about. I have raised this >>topic before in this group. Irrespective of the negativity and >>cup-half-full >>mentality of some other folks in this group, such a standard will evolve. >>If >>you want a say in its requirements, you really need to become a member. >> >> Tony Proctor >> FHISO Organising Member >> > Tony, > > I think your plan is nobel, but I really don't see a lot of support > for it. Based on my experience over the last 10 years as president of > our Family Association, 95% of the people interested in their family > history have absolutely no interest in having or running a genealogy > program. What they want is the information, in as easily accessable > format as possible. Printed seems the favorite form, but internet > access has certainly gained in popularity in recent years. Our Family > Association has sold about 300 family CDs at our reunions over the > last several years. The CDs contain a lot of information about the > family, including several PDF "books" that used to be sold in printed > form. They do NOT contain a GEDCOM of the data, and we've never > received even one request for a GEDCOM to be included. > > There ARE many genealogists, and sharing of information is important, > but many serious genealogists would never consider importing a GEDCOM > into their database, not from concern about the GEDCOM transferring > information properly, but because they want to first verify the data. > > My personal belief is that most of the requests for a better means of > transferring data between programs comes from genealogists who want to > use two or more programs for their own data, not for transferring or > receiving information to or from other people. > > Thanks Charlie but it's actually not just about sharing between individuals. The way that data is made available to users online could use the same model. Also, the same format becomes a safe representation for long-term storage - one that is neutral with respect to hardware, vendor, software package, and locale. I understand about written forms, and I generate them from my own data. However, I do not consider the written form to be my definitive copy since software can, and does, help you make conclusions, but it requires a computer-readable format to work with. Narrative needn't be excluded from this. In fact, FHISO is not even solely concerned with a format for exchange and long-term storage. They're also representing our collective interests in all data standards that affect genealogy, e.g. ontologies, sources/citations, Internet-based Authorities, semantic tagging, etc. They are already reaching out to other standards bodies and research groups in order to collaborate on issues that affect genealogy. I'm afraid the sleight in my previous post was aimed at those annoying folks who say: it's not possible (it is), it'll never work (it will), why should I pay for accessing some new standard (you don't, it would be freely available), why should I have to implement some new standards (it's not mandatory, and it's primarily for import/export), and who are these FHISO people dictating to me (FHISO are its members, and that membership should include everyone who gives a rat's ** about the future of genealogy. ...there, I've said it now! :-)) Tony Proctor

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:29:15 -0500, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote: >The draft GEDCOM 5.5.1 already supports the features I mentioned, but >a lot of software doesn't support it yet. > >-- >Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel> Frankly I suspect one will always be ahead of the other. It's the nature of the game. One might conclude that is even more need for a program to manipulate those differences based on his priorities. Hugh

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:50:30 -0600, Charlie Hoffpauir <invalid@invalid.com> wrote: >As an interesting aside, using Hugh's database, one could export ONLY >those people for which he had put a given name in quote marks. After >the select from a list choice, then mark Group, Select people by data >fields, then in the search box put Given or Nickname contains ". > >(I'll bet you can't do that with PAF) Actually in my data base the difference in name and nickname is not obvious. I suppose my quote marks indicate "name called" to be a little more precise. That may not be sufficient for purists but according to my wife I have some other impurities, too. So far I don't view hearing loss as a problem. :) Hugh

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:03:22 -0500, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote: >On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:29:43 GMT, Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) >declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing: > >> I started an S&R to replace the "s - almost 700. I knew in advance >> that the "Hugh" would become (Hugh(. I see no way to replace the first >> " only with a ( and repeat replacing the second " with a ). A / works. >> The problem? It's not what I want to do. >> > Use TWO find&replace operations... The first pass (spelling out >characters) > >find > <space><quote> >replace > <space><open-paren> > >THEN do a second run > >find > <quote> >replace > <close-paren> > >(I'd prefer to specify <quote><space> but the sample GIVN records may >not have a trailing space) > >-- > Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN > wlfraed@ix.netcom.com HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/ Thanks, Dennis. I seem to have found the solution I needed at the moment - eliminate NICK from the GEDCOM. But you suggestion will probably be useful later. Hugh

Tony Proctor wrote: > "Enno Borgsteede" <ennoborg@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:3c906$512f7062$5ed1100c$6320@cache60.multikabel.net... >> Hi Tony, >> >>> I'm afraid the sleight in my previous post was aimed at those >> annoying folks >>> who say: it's not possible (it is), it'll never work (it will) >> >> I'm happy to be one of those. I've seen many efforts to unite people on a >> single idea, and as far as I know, most have failed. And the reason why >> they failed is simple: >> >> When you design a model, it is based on your view of the world, i.e., >> something in your head. That's not some scientific truth, if that could >> exist, it's YOUR view. >> >> Now, when I look at your model, like I did last week in our RootsDev >> hangout, I see things that I like, things that look way too complicated >> for my purposes, and I miss a few things that are essential to ME. >> >> And when I tell you about these things, there's a fat chance that you >> think the same way about my ideas, and that's why it can't work. It's like >> wanting all people in the world to think the same, act the same, and I >> find that a frightening idea. >> >> Thinking about one model is like expecting that all operating systems use >> the same file system (they don't), all people follow the same religion >> (they don't), or economists to think alike (they don't). >> >> I believe in standards for interfaces, like HDMI, and USB, but I don't >> believe in a single model that rules all computers in the world. There is >> too much variety in people's ideas, and that's how I like it to be. >> >> As far as I'm concerned, people (and genealogy) benefit the most when you >> don't try to force a standard model upon them, which is why I will not >> join the FHISO. For me, it's just as bad an idea as the Euro. >> >> thanks, >> >> Enno >> > > Thanks for posting this Enno because you're very wrong here. FHISO standards > are developed collaboratively. There is no such thing as "my model". Neither > I, nor any other individual, is developing a standard that all others are > expected to use. > > All members are invited to list requirements, recommendations, and even > proposals for design elements. If you're not there then how can FHISO > accommodate your own personal requirements? > > Tony Proctor > > What's the saying? A camel is a horse designed by a committee. Bob Melson -- Robert G. Melson | Rio Grande Microsolutions | El Paso, Texas ----- Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian. -- Henry Ford

Enno, I feel there is some misunderstanding. The present organisers of FHISO won't play any larger role in determining what standards FHISO writes than any other FHISO member. I should also point out that the present organizers won't be FHISO's governing body. Andy Hatchett Acting Secretary Family History Information Standards Organisation www.fhiso.org One community, one standard -----Original Message----- From: Enno Borgsteede <ennoborg@gmail.com> To: gencmp <gencmp@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thu, Feb 28, 2013 10:25 am Subject: Re: Whither GEDCOM? Hi Tony, > Thanks for posting this Enno because you're very wrong here. FHISO standards > are developed collaboratively. There is no such thing as "my model". Neither > I, nor any other individual, is developing a standard that all others are > expected to use. > > All members are invited to list requirements, recommendations, and even > proposals for design elements. If you're not there then how can FHISO > accommodate your own personal requirements? I'm not there, because I know that the governing body of the FHISO consists of people who spent most of their time rejecting other peoples ideas on better gedcom, like the idea of personas. When you want standards, you need people who are open minded, i.e. that they accept that someone wants to use a technique that they personally reject as a waste of time. FHISO is not like that. Look: I personally think that putting templates from evidence explained into genealogy is a waste of time. Programs that implement it scare me away, but I know that if enough people support it, it will be part of the standard, so I will have to accept that it's there. In better gedcom, I saw that people rejected a simple model like DeadEnds, saying that they saw no need to collect data, and that nominal record linking was a silly idea. And at the same time, they spent a lot of time advocating things that I think are silly too. My point is, if you believe in cooperation, you can't reject things that way. You will have to accept that there are parts in the model or standard that you will probably never use yourself. If you can't, as some members of the FHISO have proven on the better gedcom wiki, and on stack exchange, you don't belong in a standards organisation. And as long as these people are there, I won't join. cheers, Enno ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GENCMP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:18:50 +0100, Kurt F <kurt.fredriksson@ieee.org> wrote: <snip> > My largest complain is >that it is impossible to get the dates according to ISO-standard, >YYYY-MM-DD. The closest FTM offers is DD-MM-YYYY. > >Kurt F I also like the YYYY-MM-DD format, but only because it's so much easier to sort when dates are presented that way.

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:12:40 GMT, Eagle@bellsouth.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) wrote: >On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:50:30 -0600, Charlie Hoffpauir ><invalid@invalid.com> wrote: > >>As an interesting aside, using Hugh's database, one could export ONLY >>those people for which he had put a given name in quote marks. After >>the select from a list choice, then mark Group, Select people by data >>fields, then in the search box put Given or Nickname contains ". >> >>(I'll bet you can't do that with PAF) > >Actually in my data base the difference in name and nickname is not >obvious. I suppose my quote marks indicate "name called" to be a >little more precise. > >That may not be sufficient for purists but according to my wife I have >some other impurities, too. So far I don't view hearing loss as a >problem. :) > >Hugh 'I realize that. My reference above (Given or Nickname contains) was only an attempt to exactly duplicate what one would see as the choice on the RM screen. So RM at that point doesn't care if you have the item in the name field or the nickname field... it will search for whatever you put in the "contains" box.

"Tim Powys-Lybbe" <tim@powys.org> wrote in message news:mpro.mivsln1d7akow0095.tim@powys.org... > On 27 Feb at 11:50, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz > <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote: > >> I've seen a lot of references to really old versions of GEDCOM. GEDCOM >> 5.5.1 seems to satisfy my immediate needs[1], but has been in draft >> status for a very long time. GEDCOM 6 is still a work in progress and >> I'm not sure where GEDCOM-X is. What is the prognosis for the major >> players to support at least GEDCOM 5.5.1 in UTF-8? >> >> [1] E.g., storing both a secular and a religous name, storing a >> romanized transliteration of a name in a non-roman script, >> storing a date in two different calendars. > > My opinion is a zilch prognosis. The problem with GEDCOM is that it > makes it relatively easy to transfer a lot of the data between genealogy > programs. But for the programmer this is not Good News; how much better > to lock the user into their program by making GEDCOM transfers more > difficult? > > Yo might get more mileage by asking your current program owners when > _They_ are going to provide the above features. > > -- > Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org > for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/ Programmers would not benefit by locking people into a genealogical product Tim. I'm sure you appreciate that genealogy relies on data sharing. Even if someone doesn't want to benefit from someone else's research, they will certainly want to pass on their own research to friends and family. If sharing is a fundamental tenet of genealogy then some mechanism to exchange data accurately and in a vendor-neutral fashion is essential. GEDCOM became a de facto standard but it was never envisioned as that originally. It now shows the fallacy of having a proprietary model which was loosely-defined and has now been abandoned by its creator. Ideally, we should have a community-defined model with a freely-available, high-quality standard. This is what FHISO (http://fhiso.org) are all about. I have raised this topic before in this group. Irrespective of the negativity and cup-half-full mentality of some other folks in this group, such a standard will evolve. If you want a say in its requirements, you really need to become a member. Tony Proctor FHISO Organising Member

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:07:18 -0000, "Tony Proctor" <tony@proctor_NoMore_SPAM.net> wrote: > >"Tim Powys-Lybbe" <tim@powys.org> wrote in message >news:mpro.mivsln1d7akow0095.tim@powys.org... >> On 27 Feb at 11:50, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote: >> >>> I've seen a lot of references to really old versions of GEDCOM. GEDCOM >>> 5.5.1 seems to satisfy my immediate needs[1], but has been in draft >>> status for a very long time. GEDCOM 6 is still a work in progress and >>> I'm not sure where GEDCOM-X is. What is the prognosis for the major >>> players to support at least GEDCOM 5.5.1 in UTF-8? >>> >>> [1] E.g., storing both a secular and a religous name, storing a >>> romanized transliteration of a name in a non-roman script, >>> storing a date in two different calendars. >> >> My opinion is a zilch prognosis. The problem with GEDCOM is that it >> makes it relatively easy to transfer a lot of the data between genealogy >> programs. But for the programmer this is not Good News; how much better >> to lock the user into their program by making GEDCOM transfers more >> difficult? >> >> Yo might get more mileage by asking your current program owners when >> _They_ are going to provide the above features. >> >> -- >> Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org >> for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/ > >Programmers would not benefit by locking people into a genealogical product >Tim. I'm sure you appreciate that genealogy relies on data sharing. Even if >someone doesn't want to benefit from someone else's research, they will >certainly want to pass on their own research to friends and family. > >If sharing is a fundamental tenet of genealogy then some mechanism to >exchange data accurately and in a vendor-neutral fashion is essential. > >GEDCOM became a de facto standard but it was never envisioned as that >originally. It now shows the fallacy of having a proprietary model which was >loosely-defined and has now been abandoned by its creator. Ideally, we >should have a community-defined model with a freely-available, high-quality >standard. > >This is what FHISO (http://fhiso.org) are all about. I have raised this >topic before in this group. Irrespective of the negativity and cup-half-full >mentality of some other folks in this group, such a standard will evolve. If >you want a say in its requirements, you really need to become a member. > > Tony Proctor > FHISO Organising Member > Tony, I think your plan is nobel, but I really don't see a lot of support for it. Based on my experience over the last 10 years as president of our Family Association, 95% of the people interested in their family history have absolutely no interest in having or running a genealogy program. What they want is the information, in as easily accessable format as possible. Printed seems the favorite form, but internet access has certainly gained in popularity in recent years. Our Family Association has sold about 300 family CDs at our reunions over the last several years. The CDs contain a lot of information about the family, including several PDF "books" that used to be sold in printed form. They do NOT contain a GEDCOM of the data, and we've never received even one request for a GEDCOM to be included. There ARE many genealogists, and sharing of information is important, but many serious genealogists would never consider importing a GEDCOM into their database, not from concern about the GEDCOM transferring information properly, but because they want to first verify the data. My personal belief is that most of the requests for a better means of transferring data between programs comes from genealogists who want to use two or more programs for their own data, not for transferring or receiving information to or from other people.