Parentage types (PEDI? ASSO?)

[WGroleau]

These days, surrogacy and sperm donation are common enough that they should have a standard term in an enum-set for PEDI and/or ASSO instead of depending on PHRASE.

[tychonievich]

I agree. When we were drafting 7.0 we kept finding more and more types of relationships and the team tasked with defining a better system for them determined the changes needed exceeded what we could get into 7.0 itself. But now that a full revamp would need to wait for 8.0 I think that adding SURROGATE, SPERM_DONOR, and EGG_DONOR to the enumset:PEDI for 7.1 makes sense.

[tychonievich]

Thinking more about these, there are some nuances to implementation.

Surrogacy is a legal (usually, sometimes social only) arrangement between a woman and parent(s) to carry and deliver a child. That makes it a connection between INDI(surrogate) + INDI(child) + FAM(parent(s)). We don't currently have any place for a relationship with that set of parties: ASSO.ROLE only pairs two individuals while FAMC.PEDI only pairs a child and a family.

We could introduce it as (1) another FAMC substructure

0 @THE_CHILD@ INDI
1 FAMC @THE_PARENTS@
2 SURROGATE @THE_SURROGATE@

or (2) a CHIL substructure

0 @THE_PARENTS@ FAM
1 CHIL @THE_CHILD@
2 SURROGATE @THE_SURROGATE@

It could also be (3) a new kind of individual event for the surrogate

0 @THE_SURROGATE@ INDI
1 SURROGACY
2 AGREEMENT_WITH @THE_PARENTS@
2 CHiLD @THE_CHILD@

or (4) a new substructure for the child

0 @THE_CHILD@ INDI
1 SURROGATE @THE_SURROGATE@
2 FAMC @THE_PARENTS@

The other two (SPERM_DONOR and EGG_DONOR) probably can work as ASSO.ROLE as they are more commonly handled without a direct agreement between donor and recipient; but we could alternatively lump the three together into some kind of common BIRTHING_AID structure or the like with a TYPE substructure.

I still think we should do this, but am not certain how

[WGroleau]

I think all of those are OK. I see also the option of showing the surrogate in the same way as a stepmother in a separate FAM in place of WIFE. We already allow the same INDI to be CHIL in more than one family. There's also the issue of whether or not the biological parent(s) is/are socially a part of the family or distant friend(s)/relative(s), or merely a legal arrangement. And what if an infertile couple has a surrogate AND a sperm donor? And if this weren't complicated enough, there are children raised by the person(s) that stole them or bought them and maybe returned, maybe not.

Maybe it would be more practical to just have tags for father, mother, husband, & wife and leave the details to a TYPE, PHRASE, or NOTE. (Father or mother could be attached directly to a child in the case where there was no traditional family, or if the family were a group marriage, these tags could designate the biological parents.

[tychonievich]

Maybe it would be more practical to just have tags for father, mother, husband, & wife and leave the details to a TYPE, PHRASE, or NOTE. (Father or mother could be attached directly to a child in the case where there was no traditional family, or if the family were a group marriage, these tags could designate the biological parents.

Fortunately we have that already:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 ASSO @I2@
2 ROLE MOTH
3 PHRASE Surrogate
1 ASSO @I3@
2 ROLE MOTH
3 PHRASE Egg donor
1 ASSO @I4@
2 ROLE FATH
3 PHRASE Sperm donor

If that's enough we could add this as a Technical FAQ with no change to the spec

[WGroleau]

That's good, though I would prefer to spell out "mother" & "father." And for cases where the donor/surrogate is to some extent a member of the family, to put the ASSO subordinate to CHIL

[tychonievich]

The MOTH and FATH tags go all the way back to the first GEDCOM public release; renaming them now would probably be more disruptive than helpful.

CHIL doesn't currently have an ASSO substructure, but BIRT does and might be a reasonable place for this too

[WGroleau]

BIRT would be reasonable, but if the person is more closely associated with the family, it would be good to give them some sort of connection in the FAM record, hence the suggestion of CHIL.

[tychonievich]

I mentioned BIRT because it allows a pointer to a family, such as

0 @I1@ INDI
1 BIRT
2 FAMC @F1@
2 ASSO @I2@
3 ROLE MOTH
4 PHASE Surrgate

[WGroleau]

Yes, but that doesn't put it in the FAM record.

[albertemmerich]

We should stop to transfer data in more than one way. There is no need to have the information in FAM, if we have it under CHIL with reference to FAM-XREF. It is old nonsense of GEDCOM to show CHIL in FAM and FAMC in INDI records. Same with HUSB / WIFE and FAMS. Data transfer only need the information once.

It is up to the application to interpret and show the data from family side, and from the individual side.

I hope GEDCOM 8.0 and following versions will have all data in one unique representation in the GEDCOM file, and stops the double transfers! And we should not add new double transferred until next major...

[Norwegian-Sardines]

If a surrogacy or sperm donation is indicated I would still like to use the BIRT.FAMC connections to a FAM record not an ASSO relationship. I would like to keep the (or better define the BIRT tag as a biological link to two individuals and create other/new tags to indicate relationships to the FAM record that received the born child. I am not in favor of using ASSO tags to indicate this biological information, ASSO in my opinion should be reserved for individuals like Priests, Doctors, God Parents, and other individuals less likely to be biological or social member of the family.

This would lock the BIRT tag to one meaning a "biological" connection, and if/when these biological connections should not be shared a RESN can be input. Where as a "Received a Born Child" relationship would have a different tag (maybe PARENTS) where either or both individuals of the FAM record are the receiving individuals of the child.

The BIRT tag is used to connect to a one parent family, when the child is born to a mother that did not wish to reveal the father. This FAM record can later be updated if the child determines the biological father, and this could also be true in surrogacy and sperm donation when via DNA checks a surrogacy or sperm donation is determined. RESN can be used here when the information is learned be could be too traumatic share!

[WGroleau]

FAMC, FAMS, CHIL, HUSB, & WIFE are not data transfers, they are pointers.  The suggestion to get rid of pointers in FAM would make us search through every INDI to find out who the children are.