These are the exact notes I took during Ryan’s two GEDCOM X talks.

Also included are photos I took for my own reference (please don’t distribute them further). Click on them to get larger versions.

First session: “A New GEDCOM: Project Scope, Goals, and Governance”

• Shout out to legacy GEDCOM. It’s time to move on now. We need a new standard.
• We want it adopted. We want DEEP adoption. Need a common vocabulary.
• Open source parser. Open source user apps.
• Community ownership.
• “Nobody is as smart as everybody.” Everybody brings their own expertise and experience.
• A standard takes time to get infused into community AND a lot of expertise.
• “Running code” always wins. No matter how cool your idea is, it has no weight until it is out there in use.
• Technologies used in a standard need to be widely used already and have stood the test of time.
• Need integration points with other standards (e.g. Name authority, place authority)
• Need rich documentation.
• GEDCOM X - working on it for the past year.
• We’re headed there. We’re not there yet.
• A vision: Extract the little pieces of data that are on the images. They are mini-trees. Trace them through the process back down to the original source.
• Open source java code to write out a GEDCOM X file.
• More choices are needed. Should be able to choose which you want, e.g. XML and JSON, or RDF.
• XML and JSON is already integrated into FamilySearch products.
• gedcomx.net and gedcomx.org and //github.com/FamilySearch/gedcomx
• The project to date has been all FamilySearch’s doing. We now need your help.
• This is the first step. An invitation to start.
• Tim Cross is the project manager over Ryan.
• Question to Ryan: How fully defined and stable is it currently. Answer: The model is more stable than Restful APIs.
• FamilySearch is committed to see this through.
• All issues with the model should be discussed in Github. They will be addressed and answered there.
• gedcomx.org/Community.html and gedcomx.org/File-Format.html
• Expecting to open this up soon, but not yet fully staffed. Be patient!

Ryan at first session

Ryan’s project manager: Tim Cross

Second session: “A New GEDCOM: Tools, Syntax and Semantics”

• GEDCOM X - The guts: Multilevel conclusions. The point of GEDCOM X is to enable this process.
• Record model. Conclusion Model. The Materials.
• RDF, XML, JSON, Dublin Core (for source citation terminology)
• FOAF describes users of the system
• HTTP - part of the API specs
• REST - Representational State Transform
• Atom - Standard for providing feeds
• Also a standard for providing search results.
• Common model - common to all models. Formal value is for normalisation and standardisation (e.g. data)
• Record model - persona is the capture of the data of a single person in a specific record (no conclusions).
• Field - 3 value types: original, interpreted, formal
• Not in yet: group list of resources linked to people.
• Not including the notion of a family. That is very difficult.
• We want to model and meet the special cases that people bring in.
• The metadata is simply a Dublin Core description.
• File format.
• Enable a tower of conclusions. It’s never been done like this before.
• Extensibility - how much to allow? This still needs to be decided.

Second Session: The Vision

The Materials.

The Model

Parts of the Common Model

Parts of the Record Model

Parts of the Conclusion Model

Parts of the Metadata model

File Format

App Profiles

Also see this GEDCOM X discussion on the GRAMPS forum

And this from the Ancestry Insider.