age of a witness

[mariannevanharten]

In my Gedcom I try to record the age of a witness when register the birth of a person.

1 EVEN
2 DATE 2 MAY 1814
2 SOUR @S180755@
2 TYPE Aangifte geboorte
2 ASSO @I203067@
3 AGE 29y
3 ROLE WITN
2 ASSO @I203068@
3 AGE 33y
3 ROLE WITN
2 ASSO @I179595@
3 ROLE OTHER
4 PHRASE aangever

When checking the syntax at Chronoplex's Gedcom Validator, it reports:
Invalid tag structure. Tag 'AGE' is not permitted under tag 'ASSO'.
The age is published in the deed, the original registration document of the birth.
How do I record the age?

Best regards,
Marianne

[Norwegian-Sardines]

First thing, the error is correct you can not place an AGE payload within the ASSO structure.

I'm not sure what a "Aangifte geboorte" (Birth declaration) sounds like a birth certificate to me, which is considered a Source Artifact and therefore should be part of a Source_Record.

What I would do is the following because I don't see a way to apply the AGE payload to a secondary party of the Source Artifact, normally it is the subject of the Source Artifact:

1 EVEN
2 DATE 2 MAY 1814
2 SOUR @S180755@
2 TYPE Aangifte geboorte
2 ASSO @I203067@
3 ROLE WITN
2 ASSO @I203068@
3 ROLE WITN
2 ASSO @I179595@
3 ROLE OTHER
4 PHRASE aangever


0 @S180755@ SOUR
1 NOTE  <Witness1 name> was 29years old at the time of this event
1 CONT <Witness2 name> was 33years old at the time of this event
... Other stuff from the Source Artifact   

[Norwegian-Sardines]

You could put the same SOUR link in each of the ASSO structure but I think this is overkill!

2 ASSO @I203068@
3 ROLE WITN
3 SOUR @S180755@

or a NOTE

2 ASSO @I203068@
3 ROLE WITN
3 NOTE 29 years old

[tychonievich]

I agree that the error is correct; ASSO.AGE is not in the 7.0 specification. Two other options to consider:

Use a relocated standard structure:

0 HEAD
1 SCHMA
2 TAG _AGE http://gedcom.io/terms/v7/AGE
0 @I1@ INDI
1 BIRT
2 ASSO @I2@
3 ROLE WITN
3 _AGE 29y

Use UID to make multiple versions of the event:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 BIRT
2 ASSO @I2@
3 ROLE WITN
2 UID e132d459-7268-484a-a684-dfd8fbd1d829
0 @I2@
1 EVEN Aangifte geboorte
2 UID e132d459-7268-484a-a684-dfd8fbd1d829
2 ASSO @I1@
3 ROLE CHIL
2 AGE 29y

Note, the propriety of this use-case of UID uis not entirely clear to me. Part of the UID spec says

This is metadata about the structure itself, not data about its subject. Multiple structures describing different aspects of the same subject would have different UID values.

I don't recall why that paragraph was added to the UID spec, and I've seen applications use UID the way I do above, but I think that line of the spec identifies that use as incorrect.

[Norwegian-Sardines]

While I agree that one could use a _AGE tag, my understanding is that this would require an extTAG and hopefully a documented extension? I realize that we can assume that the _AGE probably has the same definition as the base tag, but I’m not comfortable with not enforcing the extTAG in our examples!

[tychonievich]

I did document it; that's what the HEAD.SCHMA.TAG part does.

[Norwegian-Sardines]

Yes, missed that!

[tychonievich]

Discussed in steering committee 18 MAR 2025

• We should probably add this to the technical FAQ
• The "safest" option (in that all applications are likely to preserve and display it) is the NOTE option suggested by @Norwegian-Sardines:

  2 ASSO @I203068@
  3 ROLE WITN
  3 NOTE 29 years old

• The most machine-readable option is the relocated standard structure suggested by @tychonievich

  0 HEAD
  1 SCHMA
  2 TAG _AGE http://gedcom.io/terms/v7/AGE
  0 @I1@ INDI
  1 BIRT
  2 ASSO @I2@
  3 ROLE WITN
  3 _AGE 29y

  It is not clear that machine readability is needed for the age of a witness, but if it is this is a good option.
• The shared UID option is used by some applications for shared events (we did not find examples of sharing a BIRT and a witnessing EVEN, but that seems within the scope of what some applications do). However, it appears to us to violate the 7.0 specification, and is thus not encouraged.

[albertemmerich]

I would prefer to put the AGE information in the record for the witness, as this is the person whose age is reported. We can do this without using the UID on level 2 for the event by writing:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 BIRT
2 DATE 2 MAY 1814
2 ASSO @I2@
3 ROLE WITN
0 @I2@ INDI
1 EVEN witness for Aangifte geboorte
2 DATE 2 MAY 1814
2 AGE 29y
2 ASSO @I1@
3 ROLE CHIL

Doing this

• we do not need any extension tag, it is all standard GEDCOM code
• we do not have an interpretation problem with UID on level 2
• in record @I2@ we have DATE and AGE so immediately within this record information we can derive an calculated birth date