Gendex: A Family History Database
April 25, 2001 11:29 AM Subscribe
Gendex: A Family History Database For some time, I have been casually researching ways to store and query complex kin relations. I may have found just the model I want, developed by none other than the CJC-LDS (Mormons!) Specifically by the family history department.
The FAMily record is used to record ... family unions caused by two people becoming the parents of a child. There can be no more than one HUSB/father and one WIFE/mother listed in each FAM_RECORD. If, for example, a man participated in more than one family union, then he would appear in more than one FAM_RECORD.
And thank God they thought of a bigamy data model! Now, will it export XML?
The FAMily record is used to record ... family unions caused by two people becoming the parents of a child. There can be no more than one HUSB/father and one WIFE/mother listed in each FAM_RECORD. If, for example, a man participated in more than one family union, then he would appear in more than one FAM_RECORD.
And thank God they thought of a bigamy data model! Now, will it export XML?
I wrote an implementation of it in BASIC back in high school.
posted by kindall at 1:14 PM on April 25, 2001
posted by kindall at 1:14 PM on April 25, 2001
Note that GENDEX isn't actually the model; GEDCOM is. GENDEX uses GEDCOMs to build its index, but I don't think they had any part in defining the format.
As for the XML question, there are moves afoot in the genealogy community to move to an XML-based format for data interchange. There's a recognition that GEDCOM is kind of flaky in a lot of ways, and not as robust as one would desire. There's a page on a proposal for GED XML that I first read a year or two ago, but I don't know if there's been any movement on it. I've heard of a couple of other efforts that may have more momentum, but I don't remember where I saw them.
posted by geneablogy at 9:30 PM on April 26, 2001
As for the XML question, there are moves afoot in the genealogy community to move to an XML-based format for data interchange. There's a recognition that GEDCOM is kind of flaky in a lot of ways, and not as robust as one would desire. There's a page on a proposal for GED XML that I first read a year or two ago, but I don't know if there's been any movement on it. I've heard of a couple of other efforts that may have more momentum, but I don't remember where I saw them.
posted by geneablogy at 9:30 PM on April 26, 2001
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Also, rSchram, you may want to look up the algorithm used for searching for surnames across geographic and temporal variations (Smythe, Smithe, Smith). I just wish I could remember what it was called.
posted by silusGROK at 11:49 AM on April 25, 2001