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Because of the previous thread on MARR, when I came across a record where I have them as Common Law Marriage, I clicked to edit. What I’m not sure about is where it says “Common Law Marriage”, instead of a box for check, it’s a large field and the special character keyboard beside it.
What exactly goes into this field?

To continue my exploring, I went to Families and found the surname. The couple is listed but not common law so assume the fix was updated after my copy. No problem, just want to confirm.

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Common Law Marriage is a TYPE of marriage, and is selected from the TYPE drop-down box.

If you don’t have that on your edit screen can you show me an image of what you do see, as it is working OK for me.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

macalter wrote:

To continue my exploring, I went to Families and found the surname. The couple is listed but not common law so assume the fix was updated after my copy. No problem, just want to confirm.

The TYPE of marriage is not shown on the list, only the date, or if no date “yes”, “no”, “not married”, “never married”, or (rarely) a blank space.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

this is the field in question

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I’ve never seen that anywhere. Can you show me the GEDCOM for that family record. I think you have probably used something other than a marriage TYPE.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

Cancel that request. I can tell now that you are using _COML.

This is why I hate non-standard GEDCOM tags.

The answer to your question is that you can enter whatever you want. Its not part of the GEDCOM spec. so there are no rules.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

1 WIFE @[email protected]
1 HUSB @[email protected]
1 CHAN
2 DATE 23 FEB 2013
3 TIME 09:58:47
2 _WT_USER admin
1 _COML
2 SOUR @[email protected]

I can’t find a way to search for others and see if their records compare.

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Well, with the Church behind GEDCOM, not much luck that we’ll ever have a “proper” tag for common law marriages and other such non-traditional types.

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You don’t need a tag for it, or any other form of marriage. You are supposed to use the TYPE tag for those.

1 MARR
2 TYPE common

A marriage is a marriage, but there are different types, so record them as such.

Tags like _COML were generally invented by software companies who didn’t understand the GEDCOM spec, and felt it was “easier” to just invent more tags. So now we have a standard that has an unjustified reputation for not working properly and is barely usable as a data transfer mechanism because of it.

TYPE currently covers Religious marriage, Civil marriage, Common-law marriage, Registered partnership, and Unknown. I believe that covers most needs.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info

Okay, I can convert over as I come across them.

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