As the self-appointed resident GEDCOM guru <grin> I thought I would "chime in" with some comments and explanations. Tami Dola originally asked: > It appears in a GEDCOM that a person can have 2 family records FAMS > or FAMC. Can that family # ever change or will it always be the same? FAMS and FAMC are entries which point to a FAM record by use of the FAM record number. FAMS and FAMC are entries within an individual's record. FAMS is the "spouse record to family record" pointer, and FAMC the "child record to family record" pointer. There is no requirement in the standard for a program exporting a GEDCOM file to use the same FAM number for a given family each time it creates such a file. I have found that seldom occurs. Usually programs simply number the FAM records in the file from 1 to N. So if a file now contains different or more families, a given FAM number is likely to be used for a different family than had it in a different file. Next Martin Barker wondered: > the GEDCOM 5.5 standard ...seems to indicate that there can be > zero to multiple FAMC records... Wouldn't this allow for > the recording of birth and adopted families? A constraint of GEDCOM in this area is that a FAM record may only have one HUSB pointer and one WIFE pointer but may have multiple CHIL pointers. The HUSB and WIFE entries must point to individuals with matching FAMS pointers back to this FAM. Also HUSB and WIFE are assumed to be male and female respectively. Every individual who has a FAMC pointer to this FAM record is expected to have a CHIL pointer within the FAM record pointing back to that individual. The program creating a GEDCOM file is expected to enforce these constraints and syncronization. Yes, Martin, GEDCOM does define the capability for multiple FAMC records for an individual. This was designed specifically to record natural, adopted, fostered, or sealed (LDS) children of that family. GEDCOM also allows a FAMC entry to be subordinate to the adoption etc. event to indicate the family the individual belonged to at the time of that event. The FAMC entry provides an *optional* sub-entry of PEDI which has only four defined values: adopted, birth, foster, and sealing. Only the FAMC entry has the option to specify the linkage type, the matching CHIL entry does not. A FAMC without the optional sub-entry is always to be assumed to be of type birth. Thus GEDCOM does have a way to express four different "child to family" types of linkages if an exporting program chooses to use that mechanism. It is important to note that a FAMC links only to the FAM record, so that the type of FAMC linkage (e.g. birth) will automatically apply to both the HUSB and the WIFE of that family. I know of nothing in the standard which would prevent an individual having multiple FAMC records, even all type birth, pointing to different FAM records. But most exporting programs would likely impose constraints in this area, such as TMG's restriction of only creating FAMC records for the Primary parents. As I describe in my on-line document "TMG™ GEDCOM Export, Guide to Limitations and Issues", TMG does not use the PEDI sub-entry in its GEDCOM export. TMG also does not have a mechanism to indicate the family associated with a given event which would produce a FAMC entry subordinate to that event. While some other programs may use the PEDI sub-entry and may allow FAMC entries subordinate to events, I have not personally encountered any programs which do either. For TMG limitations in this area see the "Relationship Tags" section in my on-line document: http://www.mjh-nm.net/GED-EXPT.HTML#GedcomERelate Hope this helps explain things, Michael