Re: [handling data](1)how to go handle panel objects for edition inside a panel container

I am presently working on an genealogical application that is supposed
to replace an existing DOS application entirely obsolete and with lots
of defaults and not maintained any more.
...
I will start with marriage records but births and deaths should be very much alike.
...
I plan to have a typical XML marriage records with all the typical informations
of interest in ; I will handle these data a a marriage object in a java [sic] context
that will include children objects and for edition I plan to display those objects
in my mainPanel with the possibility of edition including :
- addition of a marriage record,
- deletion of a marriage record,
- move of a marriage record up or down (drag and drop will used),
- clone of a marriage record (in some cases the same day you have 2 persons brothers
and/or sisters of the same family that marry to other 2 persons brothers and/or sisters
of another family in which case records are very much alike for the information they
provide),
- edition of a marriage record (new one or existing one).
The structure so far is a menuBar, a mainPanel above a statusPanel ;
the mainPanel includes a jScrollPanel that includes a applicationPanel containing
all marriage objects (Panel).
Questions :
(1) can this global architecture be simplified ?
(2) what is the best choice to place my marriage objects
(recorded from the register consequently with a record number) inside my application
panel knowing that those panels may have different sizes for width and height due to
the fact that some children objects may be missing due to lack of available information ?
 for the time being I am thinking of using absolute layout with the need to calculate
position of each marriage objects taking into account their widths and heights.

Hmmm. Looks like a non-genealogist working on the program. Like the first
genealogy program I used which had a limit of two marriages and ten
children per marriage,

I'd suggest he do a panel for an event - a marriage event, which is at a
time and place - and then attach roles to it. The roles can be expanded out
as much as needed. You have a spouse role (which might have two
participants), a parent of a spouse role, a former spouse role, a child of
a spouse role - etc - a witness role (critical for identifying family
members) etc.