At the RootsTech confernence in February, FamilySearch announced that they will take the lead on developing a new GEDCOM, called GEDCOMX, and are asking for collaboration and feedback. The developments are international. Please make your views known and don't be subtle about it - that does not get the message across to programmers. It is time to demand better from the software vendors. Sue Adams On 19/04/2012 11:09, Tim Powys-Lybbe wrote: > On 19 Apr at 6:54, "John Hanson"<[email protected]> wrote: > >> David I only have FTM2011 on my machines at the minute (no I don't use >> it - just that it is nice to keep up with what others are doing) but I >> could find an old one. >> >> But having looked at exporting a file from it an idea came to the fore >> that had been lurking for a while - its default is the export in FTM >> format GEDCOM - you need to change the option to GEDCOM 5.5 to get a >> version that is more compatible with other programs. I seem to >> remember that the old versions had the self-same problem. Maybe that >> will help. >> >> Many programs these days include an option to import directly from >> another programs database but the later versions of FTM are lacking >> from these. Interestingly I was talking to Simon Orde (author of FH) >> at Olympia this year and I gather that it is impossible to get access >> to the underlying FTM database and unlike most of the other companies >> who publish the details of the database structure FTM refuse to give >> out any information. Their inability to export a GEDCOM that is >> compatible with other programs strikes me as "once we've got them - >> make it impossible to leve" >> >> Hope this may help > It a way, this helps enormously. The ground rules have become a little > clearer and, from what you have found, it seems that little has changed > in the last six or seven years. > > About seven years ago I actively looked in to the problem that it was > impossible to use so-called GEDCOM files to transfer data between > genealogy programs. I came to the conclusion that the program designers > deliberately made it difficult in order to lock us into their program > for life. > > Perhaps it is time for the Society to conduct a discreet investigation > into the portability of data between programs. Then we could publish > the findings and appeal, at least in this country, to the manufacturers > to do better. I know that most genealogy programs are designed outside > these shores but if we get things rolling, perhaps there is an > opportunity for cooperation with Societies in other countries. > > The first consideration is what sort of data would we expect to be > transferred satisfactorily. Here's a start: > > 1. Normal families of parents and children. > 2. Families related only by marriage. > 3. Completely unrelated families. > 4. Separate data categories for the principal life events, birth, death > and marriage. > 5. Facilities to put dates in a variety of formats for each event. > 6. Facilities to have an address file to associate with these events. > 7. Facilities to link notes of data sources to each of those events, > dates and places. > 8. Facilities to store, hold and cross reference, to people and events, > significant documents. > 9. Facilities to store, hold and cross reference, to people and events, > pictures of people and groups. (And sound recordings?) > 10. Facilities to add non-standard types of factual data to people's > records, such as education, jobs, etc. > 11. Facilities to add significant mounts of text, perhaps in RTF format, > to each person's record. > > Obviously the more complex the data to be exchanged, the greater the > problems that will be found in making those exchanges. > > Or is this all a waste of time? >