Event Entity

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Overview

An Event entity represents a single occurrence in time, place, and context that is relevant to the family archive. Events are discrete happenings like birth, marriage, death, baptism, etc.

Note: Facts and attributes such as occupation, nationality, and religion are typically represented as temporal properties on Person entities rather than events. Residence is an exception: it can be modeled as either a person property (for simple place references) or a residence event (when participants, dates, or detailed evidence are needed). See Person Entity for details on temporal properties.

File Format

All GENEALOGIX files use entity type keys at the top level:

# Any .glx file (commonly in events/ directory)
events:
  event-birth-john-1850:
    type: birth
    date: "1850-01-15"
    place: place-leeds
    participants:
      - person: person-john-smith
        role: subject

Key Points:

• Entity ID is the map key (event-birth-john-1850)
• IDs can be descriptive or random, 1-64 alphanumeric/hyphens

Core Concepts

Lifecycle Events

Standard events that occur in a person's life:

• Birth, Death, Marriage, Divorce, Engagement, Adoption
• Baptism, Confirmation, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Burial, Cremation

Custom Events

Domain-specific events can be added via vocabularies:

• Military service, Migration/Immigration, Land transactions, Legal proceedings

Fields

Required Fields

Field	Type	Description
Entity ID (map key)	string	Unique identifier (alphanumeric/hyphens, 1-64 chars)
type	string	Event type (birth, death, marriage, etc.)
participants	array	People involved in the event (at least one required)

Optional Fields

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Short label for the event (e.g., "1860 Census — Webb Household"). Auto-generated on GEDCOM import from participant names and date (e.g., "Birth of Robert Webb (1815)"). Distinct from properties.description, which is a longer narrative
date	string	Date or date range (see Date Format)
place	string	Reference to Place entity
properties	object	Vocabulary-defined properties
notes	string | string[]	Free-form notes

Participant Object Fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
person	string	Yes	Reference to Person entity
role	string	No	Role of participant
properties	object	No	Per-participant properties (e.g., age_at_event)
notes	string | string[]	No	Notes about participant's involvement

Participant Structure

participants:
  - person: "person-abc123de"
    role: "subject"
    notes: "The bride"
  - person: "person-def456gh"
    role: "officiant"
    notes: "The minister"
  - person: "person-ghi789jk"
    role: "witness"

Properties

Event properties are defined in the archive's vocabularies/event-properties.glx file. Standard properties include:

• description - Narrative description of the event

Note: Event timing and location are handled by the date and place fields, not properties.

See Vocabularies - Event Properties for:

• Complete list of standard event properties
• How to add custom event properties

Event Types

Event types are defined in the archive's vocabularies/event-types.glx file. Each archive includes standard types and can define custom types as needed.

See Vocabularies - Event Types for:

• Complete list of standard event types
• How to add custom event types
• Vocabulary file structure and examples
• Validation requirements

Usage Patterns

Birth Event Example

events:
  event-birth-john:
    type: birth
    date: "1850-01-15"
    place: place-leeds
    participants:
      - person: person-john-smith
        role: subject

Complex Event with Multiple Participants

events:
  event-marriage-john-mary:
    type: marriage
    date: "1875-05-10"
    place: place-stpauls
    participants:
      - person: person-john-smith
        role: groom
      - person: person-mary-jones
        role: bride
      - person: person-thomas-brown
        role: witness
        notes: "First witness"
      - person: person-sarah-white
        role: witness
        notes: "Second witness"
      - person: person-reverend-black
        role: officiant
    properties:
      description: "Marriage celebrated at St Paul's Cathedral"

Census Event with Per-Participant Properties

Census events and similar multi-person events can record per-participant data using the properties field on each participant entry:

events:
  event-1860-census-webb:
    title: "1860 Census — Webb Household"
    type: census
    date: "1860"
    place: place-oakdale-hartford-wi
    participants:
      - person: person-robert-webb
        role: subject
        properties:
          age_at_event: "45"
      - person: person-jane-webb
        role: subject
        properties:
          age_at_event: "28"
      - person: person-harriett-webb
        role: subject
        properties:
          age_at_event: "8"

Participant-level properties use the same vocabulary as event properties (event-properties.glx) and are validated against it. This avoids needing separate events for each person in a shared event like a census enumeration.

File Organization

Note: File organization is flexible. Entities can be in any .glx file with any directory structure. The example below shows one-entity-per-file organization, which is recommended for collaborative projects (better git diffs) but not required.

Event files are typically stored in an events/ directory:

events/
├── event-birth-001.glx
├── event-marriage-001.glx
├── event-death-001.glx
├── event-baptism-001.glx
└── event-adoption-001.glx

GEDCOM Mapping

Most events map directly to GEDCOM tags:

GLX Event Type	GEDCOM Tag	Notes
birth	INDI.BIRT	Individual birth
death	INDI.DEAT	Individual death
marriage	FAM.MARR	Family marriage
divorce	FAM.DIV	Family divorce
baptism	INDI.BAPM/CHR	Baptism or christening
burial	INDI.BURI	Burial

Note: GEDCOM attributes like OCCU (occupation) and RELI (religion) are imported as temporal properties on Person entities, not events. RESI is imported as either a temporal residence property (when a PLAC is present) or as a residence event (when no PLAC is present, e.g., bare RESI Y or RESI with only DATE/TYPE).

Multi-Participant Events

For events with multiple participants, GLX uses the ASSO (Associate) tag pattern:

0 FAM
1 MARR
2 DATE 10 MAY 1875
2 PLAC Leeds, Yorkshire, England
1 ASSO person-witness1
2 RELA Witness
1 ASSO person-vicar
2 RELA Officiant

Participant Roles

Participant roles (principal, witness, officiant, etc.) are defined in the archive's vocabularies/participant-roles.glx file.

See Vocabularies - Participant Roles for:

• Complete list of standard participant roles
• How to add custom roles
• Vocabulary file structure and examples
• Which roles apply to events vs. relationships

Design Note: Participant Requirement

Events require at least one participant. GLX is a genealogy format, and every event should connect to at least one person in the archive. Historical context (wars, famines, plagues) that affected a person can be recorded in event notes or properties, with the affected person as a participant. Events with no connection to any person in the archive are outside the scope of a genealogy file.

Validation Rules

• Event type must be from the event types vocabulary
• At least one participant is required
• Place, if referenced, must exist in the archive
• All person references must point to existing Person entities
• Date formats must follow genealogical date conventions
• Participant roles should be from the participant roles vocabulary (unknown roles generate warnings)

Confidence and Provenance

All supporting evidence for an event is stored in Assertion Entities that reference the event in their subject field. This keeps the event record clean while allowing for a rich, explicit evidence trail.

Schema Reference

See event.schema.json for the complete JSON Schema definition.

See Also

• Person Entity - Participates in events
• Assertion Entity - Provides evidence for events
• Place Entity - Geographic context for events
• Relationship Entity - Multi-person events