An open continuation of the antiquated and abandoned GEDCOM standard. GEDCOM is alive!
View the Project on GitHub DecentralizedGenealogy/openGEDCOM
Schema.org is an established organziation with well defined schema objects (types). It is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.
Another approach to developing a GEDCOM standard could be to take the existing schema.org definitions and packaging them up in a form specific to the genealogical industry. Similar to Historical-Data.org
An advantage to this would be that the it could also be used to view the genealogical data in HTML in Microdata format. Microdata nests metadata within existing content on web pages. Search engines, web crawlers, and browsers can extract and process Microdata from a web page and use it to provide a richer browsing experience for users. Search engines benefit greatly from direct access to this structured data because it allows them to understand the information on web pages and provide more relevant results to users. Here is an example of openGEDCOM in Microformat.
For example a GEDCOM document could be crafted using standard types from schema.org.
To fill in the gaps that are not covered by schema.org, Extensions can easily be created via hosted or external extensions. Some extensions that might be needed are:
The following is an example of how an openGEDCOM file could be created using existing schema.org types.
{
"openGEDCOM": [
// Family
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "ID001",
"name": "Bob Jones",
"birthDate": "1845-02-12",
"deathDate": "1913-06-08",
"image": "http://example.com/bob.jpg",
"url": "http://bob.example.com",
"spouse": {
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "ID002",
"name": "Suzy Robinson"
},
"children": [
{
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "ID003",
"name": "Joey Jones"
},
{
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "ID004",
"name": "Sally Jones"
}
]
},
// Marriage
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "MarryAction",
"@id": "M001",
"startTime": "1960-02-12T22:42:41Z",
"endTime": "2010-02-12T22:42:41Z",
"image": "http://example.com/marriage_certification.jpg",
"agent": {
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "ID001",
"name": "Joey"
},
"object": {
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "ID002",
"name": "Suzy"
},
"location": {
"@type": "Place",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"addressLocality": "Denver",
"addressRegion": "CO",
"postalCode": "80209",
"streetAddress": "7 S. Broadway"
}
}
},
// Source (Book)
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "Book",
"@id": "S001",
"mentions": {
"@type": "Person",
"value": "ID001"
},
"bookFormat": "EBook/DAISY3",
"copyrightHolder": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Holt, Rinehart and Winston"
},
"copyrightYear": "2007",
"description": "This book contains the paternal lineage of the Jones family starting on page 34",
"genre": "Family History",
"inLanguage": "en-US",
"isFamilyFriendly": "true",
"isbn": "9780030426599",
"name": "Holt Physical Science",
"numberOfPages": "598",
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Holt, Rinehart and Winston"
}
},
// Source (Website)
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "S002",
"mentions": [
{ "@type": "Person", "value": "ID001" },
{ "@type": "Person", "value": "ID002" }
],
"breadcrumb": "Search > Records > Collection: United States Census, 1940",
"url": "https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VYGH-JCK",
"mainEntity": {
"@type": "Book",
"author": "United States Census Bureau",
"bookFormat": "http://schema.org/Paperback",
"datePublished": "14 March 2018",
"image": "https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9MR-FNR7?cc=2000219",
"inLanguage": "English",
"publisher": "United States Government"
}
}
]
}