I will be the first to say I need to spend some time with these indexes and databases (my holiday project!). But I do appreciate that you are thinking through how to address possible fields. How about those with some experience in these sharing their thoughts. Thanks so much Anne for working on this very valuable resource housed on the Guild website and for the updates and migration. If I understand correctly, I think separate fields would be a good idea. Other thoughts here? Thanks so much. Tessa Tessa Keough Guild of One-Name Studies, Keough (Keogh, Kough & Kehoe) Registered ONS Legacy Virtual Users' Group Community on Google+ Society for One-Place Studies - Plate Cove East, Newfoundland On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 2:28 PM, Anne Shankland <anne.shankland@gmail.com> wrote: > Tessa, that is a very interesting and troublesome question about the > "contributor" of data, which I've been thinking hard about. I agree that we > should recognise the contributor of data, but from what I can see, I am not > sure that we always (or often) know who the contributor was. In the GMI, > the contributor is usually set as the study registrant, because that's the > person to whom application should be made for more information on the > marriage. But as you point out, the contributor may be somebody quite > different. And they may have further information too which could be > valuable. > > I would like to see two different fields on the GMI entries, one for the > member who actually provided the information, and one for the member who has > the study registered. But retrofitting extra fields of information to an > existing database is never easy! > > If there were separate fields for contributor and for study registrant, then > for Marriage Challenges the contributor could be correctly set to show the > membership number of the Challenger, while the study registrant would still > be shown as the data "owner". How would this be? > > Anne > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tessa Keough via" <goons@rootsweb.com> > >> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 10:37 AM, Anne Shankland via <goons@rootsweb.com> >> wrote: >>> >>> Debbie and others, the proposals you make are part of the original plan I >>> put forward for the GMI some time ago. Once converted to a true >>> database, >>> developments such as this are very straightforward, and the last few >>> editions of the GMI have existed in both the classic format and database >>> format. You may have noticed that the GMI now offers an "old search", >>> which >>> uses the classic format, and a "new search", which uses the database. >>> >>> If I were to get the go-ahead to proceed with the database format, I >>> would >>> offer (on the new search): >>> a) A search option for a member to see all the entries for his or her >>> own registered name. This would be available only to the "owner" of this >>> data, i.e. the registrant of the surname, and so would not allow any >>> harvesting of the data by anyone else. >>> b) A database option for a member with entries in the GMI to allow >>> his >>> or her entries to be freely searchable by any member. >>> >>> I prefer to consider entries to have an "owner" rather than a >>> "contributor", >>> the owner being the registrant of the surname. Hence entries might >>> change >>> hands if a surname registration is transferred from one member to >>> another. >>> This is a somewhat different concept from the existing one of >>> "contributor", >>> but I believe that at present the contributor for each entry is assumed >>> to >>> be the study owner even if they are not personally submitting the data. >>> >>> Thoughts, please? >>> >>> Anne Shankland >>> Web Indexes Administrator >>> >> SNIP

Anne Shankland said: > I would like to see two different fields on the GMI entries, one for the > member who actually provided the information, and one for the member who > has > the study registered. But retrofitting extra fields of information to an > existing database is never easy! I echo Tessa's words of appreciation to Anne for her thinking on this matter. In the case of Marriage Challenges, I have often seen cases where some of my requests to the Challenger (seeking supplementary information re parents and witnesses) have already been contributed, perhaps years previously, to the GMI fields (bride, groom, date and place). In that case, I would initially be the member providing the information AND the registered member, but when the Marriage Challenge results are loaded into the GMI, would I cease to be the member providing the information, even though I had already populated the GMI fields with the same information found by the Marriage Challenge? Dick Chandler in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada