On May 28, 3:51 pm, singhals <[email protected]> wrote: > AIUI at the time -- they were intended to be used in a > multi-person data-entry/research project which has a > master/main/official database.  The database "keeper" to use > Legacy's term, shares the GED from that database with all > researchers, who can modify or extend the data as they see > fit before returning it to the "keeper".  The "keeper" then > uses the UIDs to find who changed or added what, without > having to plod line by line through either the GED or the > database. That may have been the intention, but there's no reason to suppose it will actually work in practice. The _UID GEDCOM tag is not standardised. There may be a convention among programs understanding _UID that they should changed the UID whenever they change the associated data. But there's no reason to suppose an application that does not understand _UID will do that. When confronted with a GEDCOM tag it doesn't understand, some applications will simply preserve it intact. Any such application will then permit the modification of the data without changing the value of the corresponding _UID tag. Richard

Richard Smith wrote: > On May 28, 3:51 pm, singhals<[email protected]> wrote: > >> AIUI at the time -- they were intended to be used in a >> multi-person data-entry/research project which has a >> master/main/official database. The database "keeper" to use >> Legacy's term, shares the GED from that database with all >> researchers, who can modify or extend the data as they see >> fit before returning it to the "keeper". The "keeper" then >> uses the UIDs to find who changed or added what, without >> having to plod line by line through either the GED or the >> database. > > That may have been the intention, but there's no reason to suppose it > will actually work in practice. The _UID GEDCOM tag is not Seems to have worked for more than one person in the past; if all parties are using the SAME genie program which is designed to do what I've quoted, there's no reason it wouldn't work in practice. Can't say I've tested it because I'm a selfish little blonde and I don't give away my work anymore. I got tired of passing on 8 generations and getting ONE birthdate in return. > standardised. There may be a convention among programs understanding > _UID that they should changed the UID whenever they change the > associated data. But there's no reason to suppose an application that > does not understand _UID will do that. When confronted with a GEDCOM > tag it doesn't understand, some applications will simply preserve it > intact. Any such application will then permit the modification of the > data without changing the value of the corresponding _UID tag. Well, no, but then there's no supposing an app that doesn't understand them will advocate using them, either, anymore than there's a reason to suppose an app that doesn't understand the concept of "born to X clan for Y clan" will do a good job of recording it...or that a genie app that doesn't admit that hermaphrodites exist will handle those persons properly. Nothing is perfect. Cheryl