singhals <singhals@erols.com> wrote in news:woCdnRKY5oEFNv_anZ2dnUVZ_vmlnZ2d@rcn.net: <snip> >> >> (Feel free to ignore me, I'm new here.) :-) > > We can tell. ;) > What else besides my admission gave it away? :-) > However -- if I'm recording bits of evidence about everyone > in a community, I'm writing a community history, NOT a > family genealogy. If I'm writing in the abstract about one > family's interactions with another, it's sociology not > genealogy. If I'm writing about how the Mingo interacted > with the Swedes, it's anthropology, not genealogy. > > Yes..exactly. But they all use "individuals" (with attributes) and another element you're calling "evidence" (with attributes), but differing criteria used to "connect" either the individual elements or the other elements depending on the goal. So now we have a rough schema with two elements that applies to all of the above and allows sharing of common data. Now, we just need to define some subset elements that help make use of any extra work that we agree is desireable, and makes the least re- classification work for all of us. At some point, we will need to stop and the schemas will depart from each other, because clearly most genealogists don't need the expanded subsets that sociologists or anthropologists want, but at least up to a point we can share common data and discard what we don't want. Then, it becomes a question of who has the schema which best fits my use, or otherwise benefits me to share data with. And, an anthropologist can ignore an element called an individual and have two elements (Swedes and Mingos) that genealogists will remap as two "indivdual" elements. If we like we can use the fact that they have been classified by an anthropologist as two distintions by adding the info as an (insert appropriate label here) attribute of our "individual" element. > > Cheryl > > > >