There is a new initiative to create a new format of file for genealogy data based on XML. Ancestry.com has joined on as a major sponsor/contributor of the consortium fostering this new format file. Since there are quite a few programs that support witnesses (RootsMagic, TMG [The Master Genealogist], Heredis, Brother's Keeper, Genbox, etc.), a new industry designed and supported exchange format file to replace GEDCOM would be welcome. But like any consortium, it will take time to get buy-in, to develop and test the data model and interoperability, and then to incorporate the resulting format into the various genealogical software packages, not just those that support witnesses, but all the other active programs that currently produce or read GEDCOM files. (There are some defunct programs like Ultimate Family Tree and Relatively Yours that supported witnesses, but are no longer supported, which means they will not be updated, ever.) To be sure, this is no short term solution, but it may have an impact on whether software developers consider adding an option to write out witness or shared facts as individual facts into a GEDCOM file. Bill -----Original Message----- From: rootsmagic-users-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:rootsmagic-users-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Kim Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 10:09 AM To: rootsmagic-users@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [RMagic] Shared events The shared facts are exported, but I don't know of another program that can read RootsMagic's shared facts. If you inport it back into RM they should show up ok. In addition to that if you upload the GEDCOM file to RootsWeb it will put ALL the shared facts under the principle person. I ran into this problem a few days ago. So census records for everyone in the family just kept repeating under the father. It was frustrating. But in their admin there is a place to strip out program tags using _shared took took care of that mess. I'm really hoping that someday soon, RM will fix it so when you export a GEDCOM it has the option of converting shared facts to standard facts. This would be so helpful in your case using TNG to put your data online or in sharing the file with family members who use a different genealogy program. Kim On 06/25/2012 08:48 AM, Gerald A Cooke wrote: > Does anyone know if shared events appear on an exported GEDCOM file? > > =================================== RM list Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ROOTSMAGIC-USERS/ http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?path=ROOTSMAGIC-USERS WISH LIST: http://www.rootsmagic.com/forums/ BLOG: http://blog.rootsmagic.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ROOTSMAGIC-USERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

> There is a new initiative to create a new format of file for genealogy data > based on XML. > > Bill This is a pleasing development, although it should certainly be well understood that the development of a new file format could be a very long process. In addition to shared facts, I would hope that many other issues might be considered in the new file format. Simply changing from classic GEDCOM to an XML format without considering deeper syntactic and semantic issues would not actually be that much of an improvement. For example, I would like to see some "XML GEDCOM" improvements in handling places. Consider Rockingham, North Carolina. The town of Rockingham is in Richmond County and there is also a Rockingham County. That's one of several reasons I think it's so important to include the word "County" in place names as appropriate. I think that "Rockingham, North Carolina" should mean "Rockingham, Richmond County, North Carolina" and that a reference to Rockingham County should be "Rockingham County, North Carolina". I well understand that not everyone agrees with this approach and that this approach is not presently the standard for place names, but I think that the genealogy world should support researchers who do want to include the word "County". To that end, I wonder if it would be helpful if the new XML GEDCOM standard might be able to support something like the following. <birth><date>(birth date info goes here)</date><standardplace>Rockingham, North Carolina, USA</standardplace><displayplace>Rockingham County, North Carolina</displayplace></birth> Jerry