Well said Jacques.
Jemima From: Jacques E Decarie [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 10 July 2012 15:46 To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] Legacy - A tool Wow! I just joined this discussion group yesterday. What a discussion about same sex couples or marriages! Here is my very personal view : Legacy is just a tool. Not a statement. Difficulties in recording the information (this is what it is all about) arises not from differences (or disagreements) in religions or beliefs or local laws, but from inherent database design elements. Legacy is first and foremost a tool for recording : 1) Couples (or unions, or marriages, or “sets of parents”). Legacy regards one side of the “couples” as male and the other as female, that is the source of the difficulty. Personally, for lack of a better terminology, I consider the left side as the “Left” of the couple and the right side as the “Right”. Further recording difficulties will arise if or when a person changes sex or forms part of a new couple and was recorded on the left in the first couple and requires to be on the right in the second. 2) Individuals. I consider sex as an attribute of an individual (that is what it should be, an attribute), not a position nor a location nor a definition in or of the couple. That is the other difficulty 3) Relationship. Note the singular of this term as the only relationship required to be recorded is that of filiation, be it “blood line” or “adopted”. (All other relationships are derived). Children have at least two parents. Always two biological parents. Sometimes one of them is unknown, either the biological father or at times even the biological mother. Sometimes both are unknown. I record this easily in Legacy. If, for sake of a first example, the child of a married woman is that of an unknown father, I record two couples for this woman. One is with her current husband and the other with an “unknown” person that is recorded as the father of this child. The reason for (and the advantage of) this procedure is to preserve the true “blood line” information. The second husband in this case could also be the recorded as the adopted father. To do this simply assign the two sets of parents to the child and code one as “adopted”. For the sake of a second example, when two same sex persons have an adopted child, I record this child as “adopted” by this couple. I also create for this child a couple made up of two unknown blood parents (and, maybe some day, I may discover there identities). Of course, any individual (may he or she be a genealogist or a researcher or an historian or a name collector or a spy) using this tool, may well choose to record whatever he or she wants (that is a different issue). Until the Legacy team makes adjustments, I have learnt to adapt to these difficulties and do the best I can using this tool to record and organize information. Legacy also provides tools that can be used to generate reports and charts and books and so on. Personally, I will never rely on these tools or any other software to do the whole job of publishing for me. This is where I would choose what I want to publish or divulge and where I can decide to withhold information (information, for instance, that personally I disagree with or that my audience would dislike). Jacques E Decarie Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
