Tom Wetmore wrote: > Today's programs don't allow it. Some, like Gramps, have an event record that can be used for the "eventa" concept (see my recent response to Peter), but not an independent (e.g., never merged or modified) "persona" concept. > > The question is, do we need/want the codified evidence records as separate records in our databases or not? My answer is a resounding yes. There are many opponents to the idea, however. One camp, represented by some of the Better GEDCOM contributors, believe that evidence, if it be codified into our databases at all, should be included within the source record of the source that the evidence came from, maybe codified ("marked up") or maybe just as unstructured notes. This is better than nothing, but evidence in that form is very hard to compute with. I think an event is a valid concept between evidence & persona. In many cases there will be a 1:1 relationship between evidence & event (if one discounts implied events). However, consider an evidential statement such as "William Brown's wife Mary died giving birth to their son John on 2 May 1738". This single piece of evidence records two events, the birth of the child and the death of the mother. Note also that Mary has two roles, as deceased in the death and as mother in the birth. To hold this we need a structure which imposes both event and role between evidence and persona. Note also that the statement implies a third event, the marriage of William and Mary. It's very much vaguer - no date except for 2 May 1738 as a /terminus ad quem/, no surname for Mary and no assurance that it actually happened, they may just have been living as man and wife. So it would be a matter of the user's discretion as to whether to add this to a database. However, if we do add such records then a great many records which seem to be 1:1 with events become 1:2. -- Ian The Hotmail address is my spam-bin. Real mail address is iang at austonley org uk