About a year ago, I wrote two articles about the LDS Church’s adoption of XML
for use in future GEDCOM releases. I wrote, "Randy Bryson of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the Church is now standardizing
on the XML programming language for all future software products." You
can read those two articles at: www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/3396.asp
and www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/eastman/3438.asp.
In the first of those two articles, I wrote, "None of this
exists today. Randy Bryson’s announcement simply indicates a future course.
I suspect it will be two years or even longer before the new XML format is in
place and in use. However, the benefits will justify the wait."
It has been a bit more than a year since those words were written.
Now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has posted a draft of the
specification on the Internet for review and comment. This draft is not a complete
document, which is still under development. It should not be considered as a
working specification. The authors of the draft welcome comments and suggestions.
The contact information is contained with the document.
The GEDCOM 6.0 draft is in Adobe Acrobat format. You can access
it at: www.familysearch.org/GEDCOM/GedXML60.pdf
Dick Eastman Online
