Civil registry and parish records as sources

[IohannesIohannium]

As it currently stands, Gedcom file sources only exist with the (n+1) SOUR tag and its 0 @S(n) SOUR entry.

Civil registry and parish records, however, do not need to be needlessly duplicated and their referencing should also not be tied to the Gedcom file's language.
What I mean is, instead of:

...
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Esempio, EE, Italia
2 SOUR Atto di Nascita 999
1 CHR
2 DATE 5 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Chiesa Cattedrale di Esempio, Esempio, EE, Italia
2 SOUR Registro battesimale numero 555, registro B4
...

...we could instead have:

1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Esempio, EE, Italia
2 ACT 999
3 DATE 2 JUL 1900
1 CHR
2 DATE 5 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Esempio, EE, Italia
2 ACT 555
3 CHUR Chiesa Cattedrale
3 REGI B4

...and the user interface will correctly display "Birth record no. 999 issued in Esempio, EE, Italia on the 2nd of July 1900" and "Baptism record no. 555 of the B4 register issued in the Chiesa Cattedrale of Esempio, EE, Italia on the same day".

This should be valid for all events and the (n+1) levels, which are all optional, should be DATE, CHUR (only for religious events), REGI, PLAC (in case the death was recorded somewhere else, e.g. if somebody died at sea, the death would have been recorded somewhere on the land anyway). The "act" can be left empty, if no serial number can be devised; it can also reference a page or a folio, instead, as Catholic church records did not use to number each single entry (e.g. 2 ACT folio 3 shall display as "Baptism record on folio 3...")

[dthaler]

...
1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Esempio, EE, Italia
2 SOUR Atto di Nascita 999
1 CHR
2 DATE 5 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Chiesa Cattedrale di Esempio, Esempio, EE, Italia
2 SOUR Registro battesimale numero 555, registro B4
...

In GEDCOM 5.5.1 or 7.0 this would be something like:

1 BIRT
2 DATE 1 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Esempio, EE, Italia
2 SOUR @S1@
3 PAGE 999
1 CHR
2 DATE 5 JUL 1900
2 PLAC Chiesa Cattedrale di Esempio, Esempio, EE, Italia
2 SOUR @S2@
3 PAGE 555
0 @S1@ SOUR
1 TITL Atto di Nascita
0 @S2@ SOUR
1 TITL Registro battesimale, B4 Register

The point being that if you have multiple events in the same register, then the info is in the source record, not duplicated in individual records. The standard GEDCOM though requires you (the user) to decide whether the register is the source record or the series of registers (in which case B4 would be in the PAGE payload rather than the source record TITL).

With the proposed templates extension, you can have both be source records, if you have lots of entries in B4 and lots of entries in other registers.

0 @S2@ SOUR
1 TITL B4 register
1 _COLL @S4@
0 @S3@ SOUR
1 TITL B6 register
1 _COLL @S4@
0 @S4@ SOUR
1 TITL Chiesa Cattedrale Registro battesimal

So that the user interface can compose them more like you wanted.

That extension also provides the ability to have structured fields with labels to provide control over how the user interface displays the full citation, and how the PAGE, TITL, PUBL, etc. GEDCOM payloads are populated.

[Norwegian-Sardines]

Personally, i think that we need to get away from the use of the term “Source” because it has too many meanings as to what constitutes a source. Data entry people and many software companies have change the use of the “Source_Record” from what was originally designated as a bibliographic record to something not resembling the information that is contained in a bibliography!

[IohannesIohannium]

With the proposed templates extension, you can have both be source records, if you have lots of entries in B4 and lots of entries in other registers.

0 @S2@ SOUR
1 TITL B4 register
1 _COLL @S4@
0 @S3@ SOUR
1 TITL B6 register
1 _COLL @S4@
0 @S4@ SOUR
1 TITL Chiesa Cattedrale Registro battesimale

So that the user interface can compose them more like you wanted.

The reason I am asking about a special way of citing such records, it's because it should not be tied to the language of the Gedcom file (after all, a birth record, an atto di nascita, an acte de naissance and so on are all the same thing) and because if one has a lot of people in the file, they are usually scattered throughout many of such registers.
Though I suppose the extension you talk about would handle civil registry quite well then, minus the cross-linguistic compatibility, correct me if I am wrong:

0 @S1@ SOUR
1 TITL Registro degli atti di nascita
1 ABBR Atti di nascita
1 AUTH Comune di Roma
0 @S2@ SOUR
1 TITL Anno 1900
1 DATA
2 EVEN BIRT
3 DATE FROM 1 JAN 1900 TO 31 DEC 1900
3 PLAC Roma, Roma, Italia
1 _COLL @S1@
0 @S3@ SOUR
1 TITL Anno 1901
1 DATA
2 EVEN BIRT
3 DATE FROM 1 JAN 1901 TO 31 DEC 1901
3 PLAC Roma, Roma, Italia
1 _COLL @S1@
...

[dthaler]

The reason I am asking about a special way of citing such records, it's because it should not be tied to the language of the Gedcom file (after all, a birth record, an atto di nascita, an acte de naissance and so on are all the same thing) and because if one has a lot of people in the file, they are usually scattered throughout many of such registers. Though I suppose the extension you talk about would handle civil registry quite well then, minus the cross-linguistic compatibility, correct me if I am wrong:

That is correct. Also even though they're all the same thing, when you list a citation in some report, it is still customary to list a name/type, usually in the language of the original record consulted, so "Registro degli atti di nascita" would be appropriate if the records were in Italian.

[dthaler]

Discussion in GEDCOM Steering Committee:

• Tagged for consideration in 7.1. We invite implementation experience with extensions (not standard tags).
• The citations project team can consider this input, and welcomes additional participation and input.