Ian Goddard wrote: > There are several distinct issues here: > > 1. GEDCOM 6 vs earlier. > GEDCOM 6 is an XML version. There is a document describing it but I'm > not sure of its status - is it still work in progress? In any event it > doesn't seem to be used. It follows the same data model as the current > 5.5 so any references to the data model apply to both. Where we > consider "GEDCOM" vs XML in terms of parsing files, etc. them "GEDCOM" > is likely to mean 5.5 or earlier and XML would include GEDCOM 6. But, > to repeat myself, 6 doesn't seem to be in use. > I had the opportunity to speak to someone on the Family History Library software team that was responsible for Gedcom back at Salt Lake City in 2004. The impression he gave was there would be no effort to finalize Gedcom 6 as Gedcom 5.5 was effectively fit for its purpose - that purpose being the submission of information to the LDS. I think it likely that the LDS/FHL/FamilySearch believe that the future of family history research is web applications (New FamilySearch?) and the need for improvements in data transfer file formats then becomes moot. In other words, Gedcom 6 was just a draft and will remain so. Chad Hanna -- Chad Hanna Systems Developer FamilyHistoryOnline www.familyhistoryonline.net FreeBSD Apache MySQL Perl mod_perl PHP