GEDCOM Files -- mostly for the technically curious

Stands for GEnealogical Data COMmunications
Initially created by the Family History Department of the LDS church
Is the de facto standard for exchanging genealogical data between most all professional genealogical software. See http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55gctoc.htm
Many utilities exist to convert between GEDCOM and other formats including HTML and XML (see www.cyndislist.com/gedcom.htm#HTML)
Most all example GEDCOM files will be of the Kennedy family
Over 150,000 web sites have something about GEDCOM in them
If you submit your data to the LDS church they will expect to receive it in GEDCOM format
GEDCOM has gone through many versions over the years. Version 5.5 was released in Nov. 2001.
The GEDCOM XML version 6.0 beta version was released is 2003. Click here to review it (Adobe format).
For more specifics and technical details of GEDCOM see www.genealogy.about.com/cs/gedcom
Click here to view several aspects about GEDCOM and XML.
Click here to read a discussion about Genealogical Data Models in UML (Unified Modeling Language).

GEDCOM Files (mostly for the technically curious)