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Draft note about metadata in FILEs #780

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Draft note about metadata in FILEs
tychonievich Jul 14, 2026
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Merge branch 'main' into note-metadata
dthaler Jul 28, 2026
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Update specification/gedcom-3-structures-3-meaning.md
tychonievich Aug 3, 2026
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Add example of why user input is needed
tychonievich Aug 12, 2026
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Merge branch 'main' into note-metadata
tychonievich Aug 12, 2026
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10 changes: 10 additions & 0 deletions specification/gedcom-3-structures-3-meaning.md
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Expand Up @@ -656,6 +656,16 @@ See also `INDIVIDUAL_EVENT_STRUCTURE`.
A reference to an external file.
See the [File Path datatype](#file-path) for more details.

External files may contain embedded metadata,
which may be of value to family history work.
Applications should not to remove or edit metadata except as requested by the user.
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Applications are encouraged to show the metadata in referenced external files to the user
and provide ways of integrating that metadata into appropriate structures with user guidance.

@dthaler dthaler Jul 28, 2026

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Can we say anything more about what is "appropriate"? E.g., could we have a table of metadata item <-> appropriate GEDCOM structure?

@tychonievich tychonievich Aug 3, 2026

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I don't think we realistically can. There are hundreds of metadata tags defined in multiple standards and some evidence that common applications have their own de facto standard way of using tags that differs from those standards.

Even were that not the case, it's still not clear where data goes. Consider the dc:title metadata field of some_image.jpg used in the following way:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 SOUR @S1@
0 @S1@ SOUR
1 OBJE @O1@
0 @O1@ OBJE
1 FILE some_image.jpg

That dc:title might belong in any of the following places:

0 @I1@ INDI
1 SOUR @S1@
1 NAME maybe goes here (1)
1 NOTE maybe goes here (2)
0 @S1@ SOUR
1 OBJE @O1@
2 TITL maybe goes here (3)
1 TITL maybe goes here (4)
1 NOTE maybe goes here (5)
0 @O1@ OBJE
1 FILE some_image.jpg
2 TITL maybe goes here (6)
1 NOTE maybe goes here (7)

I don't think an application can pick a correct location without human help, hence the "with user guidance" part of the proposed text.

@dthaler dthaler Aug 3, 2026

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Thanks. I think explaining that in a note (maybe using a subset of the example that shows 2 or 3 places something could go) would help the reader understand what "with user guidance" means.


:::note
Information about embedded metadata of interest to family history can be found at <https://www.familysearch.org/innovate/photo-metadata>.
:::

#### `FORM` (Format) `g7:FORM`

The [media type](#media-type) of the file referenced by the superstructure.
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