Remote Link Individuals Across Websites And Databases

What is a Remote Linking?

Remote linking is a way of connecting people together across multiple GEDCOM databases or PhpGedView websites. Imagine if you find your great-great-grandfather on someone else's website, instead of copying the data and merging it into your GEDCOM, just create a link to him from your site. Then when data is updated on the remote site, it will automatically be reflected on your site. With this we can create a "web of genealogy" where our family trees become interconnected at common points.

This same remote linking can be applied to multiple GEDCOMS loaded on the same PhpGedView site.

How to add a remote link

As of version 4.0, PhpGedView supports linking individuals across multiple websites and databases. This means that you can link a person on your site to his father whose data you found on another site. Instead of duplicating data, you are now linking to it.

The most common application of this linking would be to separate data from a husband and a wife into 3 different databases: one for the father's side, one for the mother's side, and one for their children and descendants. This would allow for different privacy settings and configurations for each of the three databases, but still allow the data to be shared between them.

For information on the technical details of how remote linking works under the hood you can read more at How Remote Linking Works

Getting Started with Remote Linking

Before you start, you must know if you are linking to a remote database or if you are linking databases in the same site.

Linking to a remote site

In order to link to a remote site you need to know the following information:

• The URL to the web services description file (WSDL) for the remote site. In a PhpGedView site, the URL to a WSDL file will look like this http://www.remotesite.com/phpGedView/genservice.php?wsdl

• If the site is hosting multiple databases, then you need to know database id for the person you are interested in. For PhpGedView websites, this is the name of the GEDCOM file that was uploaded by the administrator.

• The ID for the person you are linking to (eg. I100)

With this information in hand, you can now create a remote link. Follow these steps:

• Login to your site as a user with editing privileges
• Navigate to the person on your site that you are linking the remote person to
• Click on the Close Relatives tab
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and select the "Link Remote Person" option. This will open a new window where you can enter the information you found about the remote person. This new window looks something like this:

• Choose the type of relationship that you will be creating with this link. If the remote person is the father of the local person, then you would select Father from the drop-down menu.
• Select the option for "Different Site"
• If you are linking a person on a site you have already used before, you can select that site from the drop-down list of known sites. Otherwise enter the URL and database ID as shown in the image above.
• Finally enter the ID of the person and click the "Add Link" button.

Linking databases on the same site

To setup a link between two people in different genealogical databases on the same site, you need to know:

• The ID of the person you are linking to (eg. I100)
• and the database id where the data for that person is located. For PhpGedView websites, this is the name of the GEDCOM file that was uploaded by the administrator (eg. surname.ged).

With this information you can now create a link between the two individuals on your site. Follow these steps:

• Login to your site as a user with editing privileges
• Navigate to the person on your site that is the same as the person on the remote site. You will have to create this INDI in your own GEDCOM if it does not already exist.
• Click on the Close Relatives tab
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and select the "Link Remote Person" option. This will open a new window where you can enter the information you found about the remote person. This new window looks something like this:

• For now, the only "Relationship to current person" option is "Same as current" which will already be selected. If it isn't, select it.
• Select the option for "Same Site"
• Select the genealogical database ID from the provided list
• Finally enter the ID of the person and click the "Add Link" button.

Accept the changes

After the links are created they still need to be accepted just like all other changes. Once the changes are accepted you will be able to go the local person where you created the link and see the new information that was downloaded from the other genealogical database.

Versions and bugs

Bugs

As of 4.1.6, the import code is apparently not reliable. You must have full access to your GEDCOM and you should make sure that there are no pending changes in it.

4.0 beta

Remote link creates "phantom" families, with an apparent duplication of parentage. This is a known problem with the beta.

Mother and father linked

Because the program doesn't recognize that the father and mother are supposed to be married locally, it shows the remote family twice, once as a step family for the father and once as the step family for the mother.

You should merge the two families that establish the relationships to the remote mother and father. Go to the Admin page and select the "Merge records" link and enter the two family numbers.

3.3.8 and earlier

This feature is not available in versions 3.3.8 and earlier.