This entity type represents some state of the research into an individual person.
When a person is first entered into a BetterGEDCOM (BG) file, using the data from a single source, the person entity will clearly contain just the information extracted from that single source. When a second source, apparently for the same person, is obtained and entered to the BG file, the user can then proceed in one of two ways:
- Add the new information to the existing PERSON entity, so that the single PERSON entity always contains the current working hypothesis about an individual;
- Create a second PERSON entity, using only the data from the second source. The first and second entities can be referred to as "evidence" entities. Then, assuming analysis justifies this, create a third PERSON entity containing the complete working hypothesis for this individual, manually selecting those accepted pieces of information from the first two "evidence" entities to put into the third PERSON, which we can refer to as a "hypothesis" person (or "conclusion" person providing we understand that these conclusions will probably be updated later).
The first method is employed by most users of GEDCOM today, and so must be present in BG to allow ease of conversion from GEDCOM to BG.
The second method can be referred to as the "evidence and conclusion model" (or "evidence and working hypothesis model"). It allows the separation of evidence and conclusions / hypotheses for better examination of that process.
It is clear that it will be
possible to stack persons in a tree so that a hypothesis person on one layer, later becomes an evidence person for a later hypothesis person.
The intention of the model is that (probably) all historical knowledge about a person be held against related entities and that this entity type should simply point to them.
Attributes:
To follow (this could be the appropriate place to save flags that control security of the IT application(s))
Relationships:
A PERSON may take evidence from 1 or more PERSONs
A PERSON may provide evidence for 1 PERSON
A PERSON may be characterised by 1 or more CHARACTERISTICs
A PERSON may be involved in 1 or more EVENTs
- This relationship (PERSON - EVENT) needs an optional attribute to define the role of that PERSON in that EVENT - e.g. a role of biological mother in a birth event)
A PERSON may belong to 1 or more GROUPs
- This relationship (PERSON - GROUP) needs an optional attribute to define the role of that PERSON in that GROUP)
More to follow re sources, citations, etc.
This page is talking about a Person, but has two options. I am trying to understand the need for two options.
I may have one person or many persons in the file that I want to Share.
I think that I can live with the first statement:
- "conclusion mode" where the entity records the current conclusions about the whole history of this person;
I am not sure I would use the term Conclusion Mode. All I hope we are talking about is "the whole history of this person". This would include any Facts or Events that involve this person AND any Source and Citation about this individual.
As for the Evaluation of the Evidence in the Citations leads to a conclusion, then the Evidence Statements and any Conclusion Statements, how ever they are formatted should be passed along.
The second part:
- "evidence mode" where the entity records the evidence extracted from a single(??) source about an individual person appearing on that (those??) source(s);
Is where the question comes in. Does this mean that a BetterGEDCOM file would start by sending the Source Citation (Evidence) with links to every person and events / facts that is linked to that citation?
That is, for a Census Record, that I would be able to Select a Source Citation and send that Source Citation to the person I am sharing information with, along with every one, events or facts that are in that Source Citation?
I am only trying to see if this is necessary, for the purpose of Sharing my research. This second part is more about me doing the work for someone else. The first entry is when I should share information about the person(s) AND where I received the information from, any Evidence Evaluation and perhaps a conclusion, but not the data from my research.
Perhaps I am not understanding this 2nd piece.
It is clear to me, that I must start with the Evidence, and create the facts or events for the person, and provide the documentation, but for sharing of that information, I would share what I have and let the person I am sharing the information "take it from there".
Russ