Haines Brown wrote: > Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> writes: > > >>Haines Brown wrote: >> >>>A crime is socially defined (Robinson Crusoe could not commit a crime), >>>but the act is individual. Hence we are back to the notion that >> >>What happened happened. > > >>And we might agree or disagree on whether it happened, but if we >>disagree, at least one of us will be wrong. > > > Guess again: I agree! But in search of an example, I find it hard to > find something that Crusoe could do that was criminal (there are no laws > to break; no one else to take offense). So let's have him commit an > abstract hypothetical crime. Well, he did it; what happened, > happened. But what makes that act criminal? Only society. I assume that > all crimes are transgressions against social norms. > > >>>I respond, not to answer your question, but to get a better >>>understanding of the issue. This David would have a GEDCOM entry like >>>this: >>> >>> n @<XREF:FAM>@ FAM >>> >>>For example, >>> >>> 0 @F4@ FAM >>> >>>So couldn't Charles I (son of Andy) possibly be F4, while Charles II >>>(son of Bob) is F5? So a David with "0 @F4@ FAM" would umambiguously be >>>the son of Charles I. What am I misunderstanding? >> >>First, 0 @<XREF:FAM>@ FAM is the first line of a record about a family, >>not about a person. > > > But Charles would then be linked to family of Urfather Andy, not to > family of Urfather Bob. I thought the issue was to know whether this > Charles was grandson of Andy or of Bob. > > >>Now as to what I _think_ you meant. The question concerned how you >>would unambiguously show that you can NOT unambiguously tell who he >>is the son of, in the computer-parseable structure as opposed to >>a human-readable NOTE. > > > Of course a human-radable NOTE could say, "This Charles is grandson of > Andy". But that fact also strikes me as being machine-readable from the > presence of the F4 link. That is, the link to n @<XREF:FAM>@ FAM will > take me to the element in FAM, +1 HUSB @<XREF:INDI>@ {0:1}, and this > to n @<XREF:INDI>@ INDI {1:1}, and in turn to +1 > <<CHILD_TO_FAMILY_LINK>> {0:M}, which leads to n @<XREF:FAM>@ FAM and > thence to the @<XREF:INDI>@ INDI {1:1}, for Andy. Or what am I missing > here? > Have you EVER heard the phrase "KISS it." ?? There is no need to do a Rube Goldberg to circumnavigate the storage-structure of HOOD, Robin. The base problem is -- "grandchild" and "nephew" are NOT terms recognized by any genealogical format, paper or digital/ No one says the relationships don't exist, it's just that there has NEVER been a uniform of of recording that, short of "He is a nephew of ..." or "She is named as a grandchild in the will of ..." Many of us create pseudo-persons as the link: I have a known grandchild but no way to determine which of 4 men are the father? I give the grandparents an UNKNOWN child of UNKNOWN sex, and that UNKNOWN person had Known Grandchild. This has the dubious advantage of being both right and wrong simultaneously, AND of transferring successfully and successfully communicating the relationship in printed, verbal, format. Now, those event-linked databases we've covered in this group DO allow you to link the named heirs to the WILL, not to the Testator, and allow that link to be machine-readable, but I doubt VERY seriously that the base relationship can be successfully moved out of an event-linked system into a lineage-linked system. PAGING: Bob Velke?? Cheryl

singhals <singhals@erols.com> writes: >> Of course a human-radable NOTE could say, "This Charles is grandson of >> Andy". But that fact also strikes me as being machine-readable from the >> presence of the F4 link. That is, the link to n @<XREF:FAM>@ FAM will >> take me to the element in FAM, +1 HUSB @<XREF:INDI>@ {0:1}, and this >> to n @<XREF:INDI>@ INDI {1:1}, and in turn to +1 >> <<CHILD_TO_FAMILY_LINK>> {0:M}, which leads to n @<XREF:FAM>@ FAM and >> thence to the @<XREF:INDI>@ INDI {1:1}, for Andy. Or what am I missing >> here? >> > > > Have you EVER heard the phrase "KISS it." ?? There is no need to do a > Rube Goldberg to circumnavigate the storage-structure of HOOD, Robin. Well, yes, of course. I was only a set of links that I assumed could be pursued by a machine, not trying to suggest it was either simple or easy. I merely tried to infer from the GEDCOM standard that a machine could ascerain the relationships, not that the way to do it was ideal. I'm still not sure of the answer to the question. Wes (understandably) did not understand it; you don't explicitly say "no". > The base problem is -- "grandchild" and "nephew" are NOT terms > recognized by any genealogical format, paper or digital/ No one says > the relationships don't exist, it's just that there has NEVER been a > uniform of of recording that, short of "He is a nephew of ..." or "She > is named as a grandchild in the will of ..." I'm not sure I understand your point. I can state in English (a NOTE) that person A is the grandchild of person B. On the other hand, you seem to be pointing out that there's no genealogical format to express that relation. True, but is that the issue? Can't I convert the grandfather-grandchild relation into a series of two father-child relations, each of which does have existence in genealogical format? That is, the machine knows that the father of the father of person A is the grandfather of person A. True, this relation must be calculated (inferred), but what is wrong with that? What is the difference between the phrases "parent's father" and "grandfather"? > Many of us create > pseudo-persons as the link: I have a known grandchild but no way to > determine which of 4 men are the father? I give the grandparents an > UNKNOWN child of UNKNOWN sex, and that UNKNOWN person had Known > Grandchild. This has the dubious advantage of being both right and > wrong simultaneously, AND of transferring successfully and > successfully communicating the relationship in printed, verbal, > format. Understood, but I don't think it addresses the question I raised. > Now, those event-linked databases we've covered in this group DO allow > you to link the named heirs to the WILL, not to the Testator, and > allow that link to be machine-readable, but I doubt VERY seriously > that the base relationship can be successfully moved out of an > event-linked system into a lineage-linked system. PAGING: Bob Velke?? Here you are using "event" in the TMG sense, not as a change of state. In your brief scenario, we have a testator, a document and an heir. These are three things; that there is an action is only inferred (in fact, they can exist prior to the testator's death, which puts these "things" into motion to create an event). Correct me if I'm wrong, but "event-link" sounds like nothing more than a formal relationship between a person and a thing in contrast to one between persons. If so, I don't understand the difference between it and a hierarchy of GEDCOM tags: INDI DEAT SOUR . For example, if I have an INDI record that contains a SOUR line, am I not creatng a relation between that INDI and a source tied to him? If in that INDI record I have a BIRT line, am I not linking that person to an event (change in the person's state)? -- Haines Brown, KB1GRM

Haines Brown wrote: > I'm not sure I understand your point. I can state in English (a NOTE) > that person A is the grandchild of person B. On the other hand, you seem > to be pointing out that there's no genealogical format to express that Not in GEDCOM. > relation. True, but is that the issue? Can't I convert the > grandfather-grandchild relation into a series of two father-child > relations, each of which does have existence in genealogical format? Yes, but if the intermediate father is potentially one of two or more in your database, what then? -- Wes Groleau Free speech has its limits http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=99

Wes Groleau <groleau+news@freeshell.org> writes: > Haines Brown wrote: >> relation. True, but is that the issue? Can't I convert the >> grandfather-grandchild relation into a series of two father-child >> relations, each of which does have existence in genealogical format? > > Yes, but if the intermediate father is potentially one of > two or more in your database, what then? Wes, sorry to be so slow about this. When there is a father-child relation (in any database), aren't we always identifying specific persons? That is, child is Child A because we always uniquely distinguished that child from others. Now, Child A has a father, which we also always specifally identify as Father A. So if we trace back from child to parent, it is always from Child A to Father A. Are we not always identifying specific people? Your example of ambiguity, if I recall, involved children having the same name and other common identifiers. Suppose we have two people with the same name and share all the features that are used to distinguish that child from others. Despite all that similarity, when the child is assigned a record in the database, the fact that there may be another record that is entirely similar should be irrelevant, for the record is somehow indexed uniquely. For example, in GEDCOM, each INDI is assigned a number automatically, and so two identical records can't be mixed up (or so it seems to me). -- Haines Brown, KB1GRM