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DEFINITIONS > Glossary of Terms
Related wiki pages:
Supplemental Glossary from Evidence Explained,
Pending Definitions
To best make sure we are talking about the same thing, we need to define the terms we use. Keep in mind that one term may be defined different ways, and it is important to make note of these different definitions.
One term may therefore have more than one definition, so please do not view this as something to be corrected.
If you define a term here, please also include the source of the definition (e.g., NGS definition) or whether it is your own or an otherwise organically developed definition. Please also add definitions from different sources even if they do not appear to be contradictory for the sake of reference.
See also
Supplemental Glossary from _Evidence Explained_, 2007
AIIM - The
Association for Information and Image Management, an American nonprofit organization, recognized by the ISO, that helps people and organizations with document/records/content management and business process issues. This is one of the organizations that handles ISO standards potentially related to advanced genealogical data interoperability.
ANSEL - ANSI/NISO Z39.47 - Extended Latin Alphabet Coded Character Set for Bibliographic Use (definition partially from
NISO) - The formal name for the character set used in the GEDCOM 5.5 standard. It is also known as the American Library Association Character Set. This character set has been superseded by the UTF-8 character set in common practical use.
ANSI -
American National Standards Institute - One of the main ISO-affiliated standards bodies, ANSI oversees a wide variety of standards for the United States. ANSI-governed standards include a plethora of diverse categories such as acoustical equipment, energy distribution, and dairy production.
APG -
Association of Professional Genealogists ; from the website (in part), "an independent organization whose principal purpose is to support professional genealogists in all phases of their work: from the amateur genealogist wishing to turn knowledge and skill into a vocation, to the experienced professional seeking to exchange ideas with colleagues and to upgrade the profession as a whole ..."
API -
Application Programming Interface - (from Wikipedia) An interface implemented by a software program that enables it to interact with other software. It facilitates interaction between different software programs similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. An API is implemented by applications, libraries, and operating systems to determine their vocabularies and calling conventions, and is used to access their services. It may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and protocols used to communicate between the consumer and the implementer of the API. APIs are most usually written to allow third-party software developers to communicate with the originating software developer's application.
AQ -
Ancestral Quest - A Genealogy Program
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange - A basic English-language character set first published in 1963 and last updated in 1986. (You can read the Wikipedia definition
here.)
Assertion -- An Assertion is a claim or a statement of fact. The fact might be the existence of a Person or the truth of a name Attribute; some claims may be justified with evidence. In some Models an Assertion is an Entity, and its computer representations are with Assertion Records. In other Models an Assertion is a Relationship between an Entity with the fact and possibly an Entity with the Evidence. Computer representations based on these models implement Assertions as References between Records.
Attribute -- An Attribute is a quality or a feature that is a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something. In a Model an Attribute is a property of an Entity, having a name or tag to identify it and a value to give it meaning. In a computer representation an Attribute is a field of a Record.
BCG - Board for Certification of Genealogists - An organization that rigorously tests potential candidates on their knowledge and skills that meet the standards expressed in the
BCG Genealogical Standards Manual. The process for becoming certified by the BCG is loosely defined at
How to Become Certified. (See also
BCG FAQs)
BG -
BetterGEDCOM - This refers to the immediate project of this wiki, which is the replacement of the old GEDCOM Standard with an equivalent but enhanced portable data format that can serve as a basis for future development of genealogical technology collaboration standards. Please see the
GOALS page of this wiki for details on the more current revisions to the objectives of this project.
BDM - Birth Death Marriage - Genealogical shorthand for basic core facts about a person as opposed to more detailed information such as a biographical narrative or information about property they owned.
Character Set - (derived from
Wikipedia) Also called character encoding, charset, character map or code page, character sets are tables of information translating computer code into readable text, symbols or information. Over time, character sets have needed to expand to accommodate things such as multiple languages, special characters on computer keyboards and new symbols such as the Euro currency symbol. Strictly speaking, a character set is simply a set of characters. A coded character set or code page associates a number with each of those characters. A character encoding tells how to represent those numbers. For example, Unicode is a character set. UTF-8 and UTF-16 are both encodings of that character set.
Citation - (from Evidence Explained, 2007; electronic version, p. 820) "statement in which one identifies the source of an assertion. Common forms of citations are source list entries (bibliographic entries), reference notes (endnotes or footnotes), and document labels." See the referenced text for numerous examples and discussions about citations, often therein referred to as "reference notes."
Conclusion (Dictionary) -- A decision reached by reasoning from given premises.
Conclusion (EE) -- A decision; to be reliable it must be based on well-reasoned and thoroughly documented evidence gleaned from sound research.
Conclusion (E&C) -- Information derived by making decisions based on available Information.
Conclusion (Model) -- Any Entity, Attribute or Relationship instance that is created by reasoning and making decisions from available Information.
Conclusion (Computer) -- Any Record or Field of a Record that contains data created by reasoning and making decisions from available Information.
Conclusion-only Model - (which should probably be better described as a Conclusion-only Data Model). During the
Evidence and Conclusion Process, the researcher may (in best practice,
should) document the individual steps. When using a Conclusion-only Model, the researcher will document their selected evidence, analyses and conclusions as text. The conclusions are entered into the application's database, superseding any prior inferior conclusion, so that a person's current data represents the latest, overall working hypothesis derived from all the available evidence.
Working to a Conclusion-only Model
tends to minimise the number of conclusions for an item, e.g. just one Birth event is
usually recorded for an individual. Working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model will result in as many Birth Events per real-life person as there have been analyses.
Data Model; Model -- A set of Entities, their Attributes and their Relationships, used to represent a restricted area of human knowledge. Models are used as specifications for the design of computer databases and file formats whose Records represent instances of the Entities. Models in the genealogical area include the key concepts of Genealogy, e.g., Sources, Evidence, Persons, Events, Names, Dates, Places, and others.
DBMS - DataBase Management System - (from
Wikipedia) A Database Management System (DBMS) is a set of computer programs that controls the creation, maintenance, and the use of a database. A DBMS is a system software package that helps the use of integrated collection of data records and files known as databases. DBMSs may use any of a variety of database models, such as the network model or relational model. In large systems, a DBMS allows users and other software to store and retrieve data in a structured way. Instead of having to write computer programs to extract information, user can ask simple questions in a query language.
Description/evaluation - term being used temporarily to refer to specific information that describes or evaluates a source or passage. Real world examples might be:
*Provenance.
*Author specific items, for example, relationship of the other to the item being cited (someone's mother, etc.); age of author
*Condition or organization (for example, census so faint as to effect readability or census where names organized alphabetically; condition of a photograph; records partially destroyed by fire)
DOI - Digital Object Identifier, managed by the
International DOI Foundation. The DOI System is for identifying objects in the digital environment. DOI names are assigned to any entity for use on digital networks. They are used to provide current information, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet. Information about an object may change over time, including where to find it, but its DOI name will not change. NB: The identifier is digital but the objects may not be. It closely follows the
CIDOC Ontology and would be capable of identying physical objects, Persons, Places, and Events.
E&C - Evidence and Conlusion
EE - Evidence Explained
Entity -- An Entity is a component of a Data Model. It represents and abstracts a set of objects from the real world. An Entity is composed of Attributes that define its structure; Attributes are abstractions of properties or characteristics of the real objects. An Entity may be in Relationships with other Entities in the Model. When a Model is represented on a computer, a Record is usually defined for each Entity, with Fields that correspond to the Attributes.
Event -- An Event is something that happens in the real world at one or more places and at a time or over a period of time. Events of genealogical significance usually involve Persons who often play specific roles with respect to the Event. Some Events, such as birth or marriage, establish Relationships between Persons. Some genealogical Models include Events as an Entity, some include them as Attributes of the Person or other Entities, and some include them both ways. Analogous to Models, the computer representations of Events can be as separate Records or as Field within Records.
Evidence (dictionary) -- the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid; information given personally, drawn from a document, or in the form of material objects, tending or used to establish facts; signs; indications.
Evidence ("Evidence Explained") -- information that is relevant to a problem; forms used in genealogy include Best Evidence (original records of the highest quality that survive), Direct Evidence (information that answers or solves a specific research question by itself), Indirect Evidence (relevant information that does not answer a research question by itself), Negative Evidence (an inference based on the absence of information that should exist under given circumstances), and Conflicting Evidence (relevant pieces of information from different sources that contradict each other).
Evidence (E&C Process) -- Information upon which conclusions may be based.
Evidence (Model) -- Any Entity, Attribute or Relationship instance that is wholly created from the available actual Evidence.
Evidence (Computer) -- Any Record or Field of a Record that contains data wholly derived from the available actual Evidence..
Evidence and Conclusion Model - linked to the
Evidence and Conclusion Process, but not the same thing. During the Evidence and Conclusion Process, the researcher may (in best practice,
should) document the individual steps. Many people will document their selected evidence, analyses and conclusions as text. When using an Evidence and Conclusion Model (which should probably be better described as an Evidence and Conclusion Data Model), the evidence and conclusions (at least) are formally documented in machine readable form.
Specifically, a Source record normally contains details of the source's contents as free-format text or as an image. When working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model, someone's name and age (e.g.) are extracted from that text or image and entered into name and age data items unique to that piece of evidence. This is the Evidence part.
The output from the analysis stage is similarly documented in data items unique to that analysis. This output is identical in format to that from a Conclusion-only Model.
Working to a
Conclusion-only Model tends to minimise the number of conclusions for an item, e.g. just one Birth event is
usually recorded for an individual. Working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model will result in as many Birth Events per real-life person as there have been analyses. As a result, working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model will show more intermediate steps than otherwise.
Evidence and Conclusion Process - This process is intended to describe the steps genealogical researchers go through. It may be carried out formally, invoking the
Genealogical Proof Standard (q.v.), for instance, or informally. In summary, it involves setting a research objective; looking for evidence to support or deny the objective; analysing the evidence and coming to a stated conclusion. Throughout the process, the researcher should review the current results and may loop back to re-start at a previous step - even altering the objective if it appears valueless.
Evidence Person - created when working to an
Evidence and Conclusion Model. This represents the evidence going
into an analysis stage. An Evidence Person is created in the same format as a real life person would be under the
Conclusion-only Model but contains only the data known at that time and will
not be updated later. The lowest level of Evidence Person contains data extracted from a
single source record.
Fact -- An item of information. In a Model the Attribute Values of Entity instances are Facts, and the existence of the Entity instances themselves are Facts. In computer representations Records and Fields are Facts. Basically everything is a Fact, so the term is not useful in distinguishing any one thing from any other.
FamilySearch - the
genealogy website of the LDS Church with resources for genealogists regardless of their religious orientation.
FamilySearch Certified - A term devised by FamilySearch to denote "
Certified Products and Services are programs, services, and utilities that are compatible with
FamilySearch and conform to
FamilySearch standards and systems." (See the current list at the
FamilySearch Developers Network - Certified Products and Services.)
FamilySearch Developers Network- A site to provide information and resources for software programmers who support the FamilySearch Platform. (See
FamilySearch Developers Network.)
FamilySearch Wiki - A central location for information about archives, libraries, government organizations that house historical records; research methodology; self-described as "free family history research advice for the community by the community." (See
FamilySearch Research Wiki.)
FGS -
Federation of Genealogical Societies a national society based in the United States offering support to member societies in organization and operation of viable local societies. Each year an annual multi-day conference is held in a different city, providing instruction to individuals and societies on a broad variety of family history topics.
FTM -
Family Tree Maker - A Genealogy Program
Field -- In computing a named item that makes up a part of Record; the content of the item is data that represents the value of a fact or item of information.
GEDCOM - (from
FamilySearch Developer Network, the current body that originally developed GEDCOM): "
GEDCOM stands for Genealogical Data Communications and is a file format specification that allows different genealogical software programs to share data with each other. It was developed by the Family and Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to provide a flexible, uniform format for exchanging computerized genealogical data. This standard is supported by FamilySearch, by the family history products that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints produces, as well as by the vendors of most of the major genealogical software products."
Genealogy - "The study of families in genetic and historical context. It is the study of communities in which kinship networks weave the fabric of economic, political and social life..." (See the Board for Certification of Genealogists(r) home page for more of this definition.
GPS - Genealogical Proof Standard as described by the Board for Certification of Genealogists(r) in the
//BCG Genealogical Standards Manua//l and briefly stated on
BCG's Genealogy's Standards page.
GRAMPS - Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System - An open-source genealogy software application that uses an XML data store. GRAMPS is currently at version 3.2.4. For more information on the Gramps XML and data model, see GRAMPS Data Model.
Hierarchical Data Model - (from Wikipedia) A data model in which the data is organized into a tree-like structure. The structure allows repeating information using parent/child relationships: each parent can have many children but each child only has one parent (also known as a 1:many ratio ). All attributes of a specific record are listed under an entity type. In a database, an entity type is the equivalent of a table; each individual record is represented as a row and an attribute as a column. Entity types are related to each other using 1: N mapping, also known as one-to-many relationships. this model is recognized as the first data base model created by IBM in the 1960s. Both GEDCOM data structure and XML data structure more closely adhere to a hierarchical data structure, as opposed to the RDBMS structure most commonly used in genealogical software implementations.
IETF -
Internet Engineering Task Force - An international standards body not affiliated with ISO which governs most technical standards for the internet. IETF takes a developmental approach to standards rather than the codified approach preferred by the ISO and thus remains a more flexible, nimble body more suited to the needs of internet-based technologies.
INCITS -
InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards-
The primary U.S. focus of standardization in the field of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), encompassing storage, processing, transfer, display, management, organization, and retrieval of information.
ISO -
International Organization for Standardization - The worldwide governing body for standards for just about everything.
Item type or format - term being used temporarily to describe the the source content or form:
*Digital Image
*Record Copy
*Duplicate original
LDS Church - or LDS - Abbreviation for the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known in genealogy circles for its microfilming and digitization projects, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, some 4,500+ Family History Centers throughout the world, and its website
FamilySearch.org offering a multitude of resources including free indexes and scanned images of original documents from over a hundred countries.
LFT -
Legacy Family Tree - A genealogy management software program for the Windows platform.
Lifelines -
Lifelines - An open source genealogy management software program originally developed on Unix, but available on many operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. It has a very powerful reporting language.
Metadata - (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata ). Usually summarised as "data about data". For instance, (to take a non-genealogical example that I hope still applies), the metadata about a railway wagon number on American railroads tells us that it is up to ten characters long, consisting of a group of up to four letters followed by a group of up to six numbers. It also tells us something about the meaning of those letters (usually ownership). Knowing the metadata helps a programmer write basic validation on input and understand at least some of what the data means. Much of the GEDCOM standard consists of metadata describing how big data items can be, what they mean, what they relate to, etc.
Name (Personal) -- The words by which a Person is known or referred to. In some genealogical Models a Name is an Attribute of a Person Entity. In some computer representations a Name is a Field of a Person Record. The computer representation of a Name's value is typically restricted with rules about length, character set, and overall formatting.
NISO -
National Information Standards Organization - An organization accredited by ANSI and ISO, NISO oversees standards in the United States for libraries, the media, information technology and publishing.
NGS -
National Genealogy Society - A genealogical organization in the United States that offers support to individuals by publishing the prestigious
National Genealogical Society Quarterly demonstrating excellence in research and reports and by hosting an annual multi-day conference featuring a variety of professional and technical experts.
PAF -
Personal Ancestral File - A genealogy management software program produced by the LDS Church for the Windows platform currently at version 5.2.18.0, which is not compatible with the so-called "newFamilySearch" and is not listed as FamilySearch Certified.
Person -- A Person is a real human being who exists or existed. The term is used in Models for the Entity that represents human beings. In Models that contain both Evidence and Conclusion based Entities, the terms Evidence Person or Conclusion Person are sometimes used. Some Models use the term Individual for the Conclusion level Person Entity, or the term Persona for the Evidence level Person Entity. The term Person is also used as the name of the Record type that holds information about human beings in computer Databases and Files.
Persona (1) - A term for an entity in the GENTECH Data Model. The GENTECH definition is abstracted below:
<
Definition starts>
PERSONA
...
Definition: Contains the core identification for each individual in genealogical data, and allows information about similarly named or identically named people to be brought together, after suitable analysis, in the same aggregate individual. Because real human beings leave data tracks through time as if they were disparate shadow personas, this entity allows the genealogical researcher to tie together data from different personas that he or she believes belong to the same real person. The mechanism for this, discussed in the text, is to make different PERSONAs part of the same GROUP.
...
Relationships: One PERSONA is based on one ASSERTION. However, note that an ASSERTION may link one PERSONA to a GROUP, and thus many separate PERSONAs can be brought together into a higher level constructed PERSONA.
...
From: GENTECH Genealogical Data Model, version 1.1, 29 May 2000, page 60
<
Definition ends>
Commentary - Note there is NO Person entity in the GENTECH Data Model, and a higher level PERSONA may be constructed from several on a lower level - their data is combined to form the information about the higher level Persona. It is unclear to the author why the term Persona is used in the GENTECH Data Model as the entity appears to have all the obvious characteristics of a Person entity.
Persona (2) - A term for an entity in the new FamilySearch ("nFS") Data Model.
A Persona entity appears to be intended to represent the data extracted from
one source about one human being. Their Person (not Persona) entity appears to be intended to represent the sum of the current conclusions about one human being. A Person takes its information from one or more Personas. newFamilySearch uses a two-level data model so Persons are only made up of Personas, which are derived only from sources.
Personal Commentary
- There appears to be nothing in nFS that mandates a source record exists in nFS for the Persona.
- As indicated above, this is a 2-level model only, so there is no opportunity to combine 2 Personas into a new entity and then to combine that new entity with a 3rd one to create a Person. The Person must be a combination of 3 Personas all at once.
- The nFS users never see the term "persona" on-screen - they only enter and combine people. Personas are therefore hidden from the user.
- I do not have access to nFS documentation about their data model. This text represents people's deductions about that model from the use of nFS.
See Discussion "
Differences from FS Personas?" and "
The Evidence Architecture of the New FamilySearch Tree"
PFACT - Acronym of "Property, Fact, Attribute, Characteristic, or Trait," coined by T. Wetmore of the Better GEDCOM effort, in an attempt to help avoid confusion caused by the use of these many synonyms for the same concept. Conveniently pronounceable as "fact."
Place - A place is a geographic area that may be larger than a country and in theory as small as a single point in space. Examples of place types are buildings, farms, cities, church parishes, military districts, postal areas, states, countries, continents, oceans etc. The geographic area representing a place may change somewhat over time, i.e. it may grow or shrink. Places, and information about places, may be represented in data models, databases and files.
Place Name – A name of a place, often found in sources. A place may have several names at the same time or at different periods of time, and there may be several places with the same name within a given context. A place may have different names in different languages. Place names may be represented in data models, databases and files.
Place Hierarchy - A place may be located within other higher level places covering larger areas, which may themselves be located in even higher level places, forming a hierarchy. The highest level in the hierarchy is often a country, and the lowest for example a farm. A place may be a member of several hierarchies, often defined by different organizations in public administration. Hierarchies may change over time, e.g. when a local place is included in another country, but the local place does per definition stay the same. Place Hierarchies may be represented in data models, databases and files.
Place Name Hierarchy - A place hierarchy is identified by the names (and optionally types) of the places in the hierarchy during a certain period of time, a Place Name Hierarchy, often found in sources and/or implied by the geographic area covered by the source itself. Place Name Hierarchies can be represented in the current Gedcom by a comma-separated list of names. A hierarchy of names of higher level places provides an additional context for the identification of a place by name, but there could be cases where the hierarchy of names does not identify the higher level context uniquely. Place Name Hierarchies may be represented in data models, databases and files.
Place Types – A classification of a place. Examples of place types are buildings, farms, cities, church parishes, military districts, postal areas, states, countries, continents, oceans etc. The classification may change over time (e.g. a school building changing into a factory), but the type of the highest level places often stay the same. Different terms may be used for a type that essentially means the same classification, possibly using different languages. Place Types may be represented in data models, databases and files.
QUAY - Found in GEDCOM 5.5, "CERTAINTY_ASSESSMENT." From the specification (PDF), p. 38-39, in part, "The QUAY tag's value conveys the submitter's quantitative evaluation of the credibility of a piece of information, based upon its supporting evidence. Some systems use this feature to rank multiple conflicting opinions for display of most likely information first. It is not intended to eliminate the receiver's need to evaluate the evidence for themselves." The specification includes further comment, as below. (Note: These further comments are the subject of much controversy.)
0
|
Unreliable evidence or estimated data
|
1
|
Questionable reliability of evidence (interviews, census, oral genealogies, or potential for bias for example, an autobiography)
|
2
|
Secondary evidence, data officially recorded sometime after event
|
3
|
Direct and primary evidence used, or by dominance of the evidence
|
See also "Surety."
RDBMS - Relational Database Management System - (via
Wikipedia) A relational database management system (RDBMS) is a database management system (DBMS) that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. Most popular commercial and open source databases currently in use are based on the relational database model. A short definition of an RDBMS may be a DBMS in which data is stored in the form of tables and the relationship among the data is also stored in the form of tables. Almost all genealogical software programs store users' genealogical data using an RDBMS.
Record -- In computing a Record is a number of Fields of information that are handled as a whole. Records conform to restrictions that specify the sets of Fields a Record of a particular type may have, and the possible values those Fields may contain. Computer databases consist of potentially huge numbers of Records of potentially many types. Records can be written to and read from files.
Record Identification - term being used temporarily to refer to the specific information consulted in a source. Real world examples might be:
*Household identification (on a census)
*Individual's record name and record content (on a birth certificate or baptismal record)
*Parcel name or number (on a map)
Relationship -- A Relationship is a connection between two or more persons, objects or concepts. Models consist of Entities and Relationships, where the Relationships are viewed as labeled connections between Entities. In computer representations Relationships are often implemented as Fields of Records that refer or point to other Records.
Repository -- An institution such as an archive, government office or library, or any other site or location or service, that collects, manages, archives, curates or indexes, and makes available Source items for Research. Repositories are included in most Data Models as an Entity that represents physical Repositories. In Models that use Object Orientation the Repository Entity may have sub-types to represent different kinds of Repositories. Repositories are represented in computer Databases and Files as Repository Records that conform to the definition of a Repository Model Entity.
Reunion -
Leister Productions - A genealogy management software programme produced by Leister Productions for the Macintosh, iPhone and iPad platforms. Current versions are
Reunion for Macintosh 9.0c,
Reunion for iPhone & iPod touch 1.02 and
Reunion for iPad 1.01.
RFC- Request For Comments - (from
Wikipedia) A memorandum published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems. Through the Internet Society, engineers and computer scientists may publish discourse in the form of an RFC, either for peer review or simply to convey new concepts, information, or (occasionally) engineering humor. The IETF adopts some of the proposals published as RFCs as Internet standards.
RM -
RootsMagic - a genealogy management software program for Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000 platforms, created by Bruce Buzbee for RootsMagic, Inc. Free RootsMagic Essential and an full-functionality upgrade currently at version 4.0.96 (13 Aug 2010).
Scholarly Genealogy - A term used by the BetterGEDCOM Project to refer to the practice of genealogy using processes, concepts, definitions and standards defined and advocated by various professional organizations, bodies or individuals. We do not attempt to define who is included in this definition.
SoG -
Society of Genealogists- Long-established UK society. It was incorporated under Licence of the Board of Trade as the Society of Genealogists of London on May 8 1911.
Source of the source - a credit line (EE p. 2007, p 427), it refers back to the source author's citation, authorities or parenthetical references. For example, the items below:
*NARA micropublication name and roll (for digital images of certain NARA publications like census)
*Agency and Book and Page or Certificate Number; Repository (for vital record indexes)
*Author Title and FHL film Number (for records in the FS Historical Record Collections)
Source Type - term being used temporarily to describe the source. Examples include terms like database, index, bound manuscript, typescript, photograph, letter, E-mail, listserve archive
Surety - Terminology found in one or more genealogy programs. The Master Genealogist (TMG) uses this term. Definition from the TMG Glossary:
A numerical value assigned to indicate the quality of a source in documenting a given fact recorded in the data set. The surety values are recorded in the citation record. The values are:
3= an original source, close in time to the event
2= a reliable secondary source
1= a less reliable secondary source or an assumption based on other facts in a source
0= a guess
-= the source does not support the information cited or this information has been disproved
About Surety, from the TMG Help file topic "GEDCOM export":
Sureties
When this option is selected, surety values are exported to the extent supported by GEDCOM. Date, place, and memo sureties are exported with a QUAY tag at one level higher (usually 4) than the source citation from which they are referenced.
TMG -
The Master Genealogist - A genealogy management software program for the Windows platform owned by WhollyGenes, Inc. TMG is currently at version 7.04.
TNG - The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding© ("TNG") is a powerful way to manage and display your genealogy data on your own web site, all without generating a single page of static HTML. Instead, your information is stored in MySQL database tables and dynamically displayed in attractive fashion with PHP (a scripting language). TNG is currently at version 9.01 (27 Feb 2012).
Unicode -
The Unicode Consortium - The international effort, initially started in the United States, which publishes a unified, worldwide character set. Unicode corresponds with ISO standard 10646 level 3.
UTF-8 - This is the technical name for the Unicode character encoding that is now nearly universally used in computer systems. UTF-8 corresponds to ISO standard 10646-1:2000 Annex D as well as IETF RFC 3629. The terms Unicode and UTF-8 are generally used interchangeably when speaking of computer character sets and encodings. (See
this page for detailed information.)
URI - Uniform Resource Identifier - (from
Wikipedia) A a string of characters used to identify a name or a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network (typically the World Wide Web) using specific protocols. Schemes specifying a concrete syntax and associated protocols define each URI. Subcategories of URIs include URLs and URNs.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator - (from
Wikipedia) A subcategory of URI that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. In popular usage and in many technical documents and verbal discussions it is often incorrectly used as a synonym for URI.
URN - Uniform Resource Name - (from
Wikipedia) A subcategory of
URI that uses the urn scheme, and does not imply availability of the identified resource. Both URNs (names) and URLs (locators) are URIs, and a particular URI may be a name and a loc
ator at the same time.
UUID - (Universally Unique Identifier) - (from
Wikipedia) - An identifier standard used in software construction, standardized by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) as part of the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE). The intent of UUIDs is to enable distributed systems to uniquely identify information without significant central coordination. Thus, anyone can create a UUID and use it to identify something with reasonable confidence that the identifier will never be unintentionally used by anyone for anything else.
Web 2.0 - (from
Wikipedia) - The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumer) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumer) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites, blogs, wikis, video-sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.
XML -
eXtensible Markup Language - (from
Wikipedia) A set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards. XML's design goals emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability over the Internet. It is a textual data format with strong support via Unicode for the languages of the world. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, it is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures, for example in web services.