GEDCOM 5.5.5 Query

[BeppieChick]

I received this from genealogyonline when I uploaded my last GEDCOM file - can anyone tell me if Reunion is going to upgrade to 5.5.5 and if not, is this really an issue for my family tree, or only when uploading as GEDCOM - and is that an issue - I'm not really understanding all the gaff they have typed up - I'm quite savvy on the computer but this is all a bit much for me to comprehend. If anyone can let me know what this means in plain English, I would appreciate it. To follow is the script they put up:

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A check of the GEDCOM file you uploaded, shows that this file - produced by Reunion - is not entirely in accordance with the GEDCOM agreements. This does not mean that you have done something wrong! However, there is a risk that the data entered by you will not come across correctly and completely if you transfer this from your family tree program or service via a GEDCOM file to another family tree program or service (such as Genealogy Online). I recommend that you ask the Reunion team to better handle your data by carefully following the GEDCOM 5.5 (or rather 5.5.5) specification so that other family tree programs and services can properly process your genealogical data. Agreement on GEDCOM files
If data from one program or service is transferred to another program or service, this can only be successful if both parties assign the same meaning to the data. For genealogical data, the format is prescribed by the GEDCOM specification. This specification, which is of great importance for developers of family tree programs and services, must ensure that the meaning of your genealogical data is clear. On the website www.gedcom.org information is provided about this genealogical data standard.

Reunion has created a GEDCOM file based on (according to its own specification) the 5.5 version of the GEDCOM specification. GEDCOM version 5.5 dates from 1995, version 5.5.1 from 1999, and the 5.5.1 Annotated Edition from 2018. The current version is GEDCOM 5.5.5, published in 2019. Validation of your file (Warnings)
Your GEDCOM file has been checked (on the Genealogy Online server) using the GED-inline service. This validation does not look at the information you entered, but at the structure and character coding of the GEDCOM file that contains your genealogical information. It answers the question: does the GEDCOM file meet the GEDCOM specification? The more warnings, the greater the chance that you will lose information if you try to read the GEDCOM file into another family tree program or service.

Below is the summary of the validation performed by GED-inline. If you want a complete overview of the 96 warnings, upload your GEDCOM file to the GED-inline validation service (then followed the the attached file).

GED-inline-15387.txt

Meaning of 'User-defined' tags
498 user-defined tags have also been found in your GEDCOM file. User-defined tags are permitted according to the GEDCOM 5.5 specification, although it is not recommended in the same specification. The most important reason is that the user-defined tags are often not understood by other family tree programs and services because they do not know the meaning of these user-defined tags. Reunion has not published an overview of used user-defined tags and their meaning on the internet. If you import your genealogical data into another family tree program or services, there is a good chance that the information distributed via the Reunion user-defined tags will be lost. Protect your genealogical data! What can you do?
I assume that you attach great importance to the genealogical data entered in your family tree program. A good family tree program exports the data in a GEDCOM format that complies with a current version of the GEDCOM specification and minimizes the use of user-defined tags (which are documented). Ask the Reunion team if they want to improve this aspect of their program, so that your information is not lost during an export (and import).

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I don't really understand much of this - do I need to worry about my family tree not being accurate, or things missing or what?

Regards
Liz

[theKiwi]

Just for the heck of it I ran a GEDCOM file from my Reunion 12 through this as follows:

1 - "VERS 5.5" as set by Reunion.

Loads of errors generated - the most prevalent one being that MULTIMEDIA_FILE_REFERENCE was longer than 30 characters - this is true - GEDCOM 5.5 says it must be between 1 and 30 characters. The error about CHAR UTF-8 is present - UTF-8 wasn't supported in GEDCOM until 5.5.1. Lots of invalid tags listings. Some Invalid Date listings

Total Warnings 1,429

2 - Same file with the line "VERS 5.5.1"

The CHAR UTF-8 error is gone - since GEDCOM 5.5.1 was the first to add UTF-8 as a valid character set for GEDCOM files. Still all of the MULTIMEDIA_FILE_REFERENCE errors and invalid tag listings. Still invalid date listings

Total Warnings 1,431

3 - Same file with line changed to "VERS 5.5.5"

Now all the MULTIMEDIA_FILE_REFERENCE error lines are gone - GEDCOM 5.5.5 now allows a much more sensible 259 characters. Still invalid tag listings and invalid date listings

Total Warnings: 251

So perhaps really just by accident, Reunion 12 is much more compatible with GEDCOM 5.5.5 than it was with the earlier de facto standard of 5.5.1, than it was with what it is announcing itself as GEDCOM 5.5

So the easiest fix for Leister Productions might be to simply change the string that it outputs for the VERS line to 5.5.5. The tag errors and date errors are to some extent mine I think. The date errors are that ? is an invalid date (I use that to show that I don't know the date, but I know it happened - most commonly to indicate people are deceased) or date ranges that I've entered and convinced Reunion to accept as a valid date.

There are other problems - like the SUBM not handled correctly - it should be in the HEAD not referenced off to another place with "1 SUBM @SUB1@".

Roger

[theKiwi]

*** Line 6984: Invalid content for CONT tag: 'McMillan served as President of the International Northwest Aviation Council in 1963. He was named to their Aviation Roll of Honour in 1976. On November 13, 1981 a Wardair DC-10 with the call letters C-GFHX and the name S.R. ���Stan��� McMillan left T' is more than 248 characters, the maximum length for <SUBMITTER_TEXT>

These errors are probably because you've copied and pasted the information into Reunion from somewhere like MS Word - the red upside down ? marks shown in the original error are indication of an invalid character - perhaps a new line/paragraph marker or smart curly quotes that got messed up. You should go through all those types of errors from the listing and find them in your Reunion and re-type them in Reunion to clean them up.

Roger

[fjvanbodegom]

The gedcom 5.5.5 is not an official and formal specification.
This 5.5.5 variant is devised by some private individuals and as far as I know, there is no (international) pedigree program that support this gedcom 5.5.5.
The last formal version is 5.5.1, used and accepted in most genealogy programs.
Looking at several discussions on several forums, I have the feeling that this gedcom 5.5.5 is pushed as a new gedcom standard by the website gedcom.org and several press releases.
Think that those messages of (quoted: 'is not entirely in accordance with the GEDCOM agreements') and warnings can give a lot of unnecessary confusion.

[B Jansen]

GEDCOM 5.5.5 just came out so immediate implementation by software programs would be unrealistic. The website "pushing" it is simply the site of the group that came up with it.

Everyone acknowledges that the GEDCOM standard is long in the tooth, had many errors when it was new, and is long overdue for updating. Some more overarching attempts (GEDCOMX, etc.) have gone no where. This is a much more focused and manageable attempt to at least fix the commonly-recognized errors of the long dormant standard.

There are already other problems with Reunion not following the current 5.5.1 standard (estimated and calculated dates, etc.).

[BeppieChick]

These errors are probably because you've copied and pasted the information into Reunion from somewhere like MS Word - the red upside down ? marks shown in the original error are indication of an invalid character - perhaps a new line/paragraph marker or smart curly quotes that got messed up. You should go through all those types of errors from the listing and find them in your Reunion and re-type them in Reunion to clean them up.

Roger

Hi Roger

Your second answer was on the button - I had been copying and pasting information about some people from websites - I have 3 other family trees and never had this message before - so I should have guessed myself because this happened to a new one I started for a family member and there was lots of info on the web for the people I researched. Now that I know that copying and pasting from a web could cause this, I will paste into a word app, remove special formats etc and repaste into Reunion as fresh text. i will go through those errors from the listing to find them - thanks so much for your help and good to know it was simpler than I thought. Appreciate your help.

Liz

[BeppieChick]

The gedcom 5.5.5 is not an official and formal specification.
This 5.5.5 variant is devised by some private individuals and as far as I know, there is no (international) pedigree program that support this gedcom 5.5.5.
The last formal version is 5.5.1, used and accepted in most genealogy programs.
Looking at several discussions on several forums, I have the feeling that this gedcom 5.5.5 is pushed as a new gedcom standard by the website gedcom.org and several press releases.
Think that those messages of (quoted: 'is not entirely in accordance with the GEDCOM agreements') and warnings can give a lot of unnecessary confusion.

thanks for replying Frans - after reading Roger's reply I realised what I had done differently to my other family trees that I have uploaded - appreciate your time.

[BeppieChick]

GEDCOM 5.5.5 just came out so immediate implementation by software programs would be unrealistic. The website "pushing" it is simply the site of the group that came up with it.

Everyone acknowledges that the GEDCOM standard is long in the tooth, had many errors when it was new, and is long overdue for updating. Some more overarching attempts (GEDCOMX, etc.) have gone no where. This is a much more focused and manageable attempt to at least fix the commonly-recognized errors of the long dormant standard.

There are already other problems with Reunion not following the current 5.5.1 standard (estimated and calculated dates, etc.).

thanks for replying Bradley - after reading Roger's reply I realised what I had done differently to my other family trees that I have uploaded - appreciate your time.

[theKiwi]

Your second answer was on the button - I had been copying and pasting information about some people from websites - I have 3 other family trees and never had this message before - so I should have guessed myself because this happened to a new one I started for a family member and there was lots of info on the web for the people I researched. Now that I know that copying and pasting from a web could cause this, I will paste into a word app, remove special formats etc and repaste into Reunion as fresh text. i will go through those errors from the listing to find them - thanks so much for your help and good to know it was simpler than I thought. Appreciate your help.

Reunion has a "Paste as Plain Text" option in the edit menu - Command-Option-v - that "should" do the same thing without having to go through a word app.

Roger

[BeppieChick]

Reunion has a "Paste as Plain Text" option in the edit menu - Command-Option-v - that "should" do the same thing without having to go through a word app.

Roger

Hi Roger

Thanks for that hint - I hadn't started on that yet, so good to know this now. I put this post as solved, but when i went to fix all the warning, they were all nothing to do with any text that I had copied (will still fix that anyway), but mostly things like GEDCOM tags (some of which are standard, some made by me but pretty sure found on a website some time ago, plus they work with my other trees which get no warnings), flags I had made (complete, military, clergy etc), nicknames (even though I use the standard tag for this), even Common Law which is standard. So I had nothing to fix - maybe I should just ignore the warning because I only receive it on the one website for one of my trees (https://www.genealogieonline.nl). Still very strange though.

Liz

[theKiwi]

Thanks for that hint - I hadn't started on that yet, so good to know this now. I put this post as solved, but when i went to fix all the warning, they were all nothing to do with any text that I had copied (will still fix that anyway), but mostly things like GEDCOM tags (some of which are standard, some made by me but pretty sure found on a website some time ago, plus they work with my other trees which get no warnings), flags I had made (complete, military, clergy etc), nicknames (even though I use the standard tag for this), even Common Law which is standard. So I had nothing to fix - maybe I should just ignore the warning because I only receive it on the one website for one of my trees (https://www.genealogieonline.nl). Still very strange though.

The error I quoted above about illegal characters was from your report - so somewhere in a Note you have that string of text that has some illegal characters around the name "Stan" - maybe curly quotes or something?

Roger

[BeppieChick]

The error I quoted above about illegal characters was from your report - so somewhere in a Note you have that string of text that has some illegal characters around the name "Stan" - maybe curly quotes or something?

Roger

I didn't even see that piece at the end - gosh, what a blonde moment or two I am having - thanks! I will get on to changing all those notes. As for the GEDCOM tags not allowed, I'm guessing all it means is that any words within that tag will not appear on any tree uploads on websites, which is fine - as long as the main info gets uploaded. Not much I can do about that until I find a tag that IS allowed for the info I am entering in a certain field. All a bit of a learning curve.

Liz

[eric.vanbeest]

Just as a side-note and perhaps of interest:
genealogieonline.nl, run by Coret Technologies, is currently the only site which validates against GEDCOM 5.5.5. This is because the drafterof the GEDCOM 5.5.5 proposal works for Coret, and the document was reviewed by Bob Coret, owner of Coret Technologies. So – no conflict of interest there.

[BeppieChick]

Just as a side-note and perhaps of interest:
genealogieonline.nl, run by Coret Technologies, is currently the only site which validates against GEDCOM 5.5.5. This is because the drafterof the GEDCOM 5.5.5 proposal works for Coret, and the document was reviewed by Bob Coret, owner of Coret Technologies. So – no conflict of interest there.

Hi Eric

Aaaah, i wondered why his site was the only one that gave that message. Appreciate you letting me know.

Liz

[B Jansen]

It isn't a "conflict of interest" any more than FamilySearch and PAF having one with previous versions of GEDCOM.