Putting the family tree onto computer can be divided into two steps:
- storing in a suitable format, the thousands of items of data.
- drawing out the tree in an acceptable format, from this data.
A widely accepted data standard developed by the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) for storing the data is 'GEDCOM'. There are many commercially available programs for both recording the family tree information in Gedcom
format and for drawing out the family tree from this data.
Using this standard as an intermediate step should allow anyone with the appropriate software to record their part of the tree in Gedcom format. Others, with
software of their choice, could use this for drawing out part or all of the tree in their own style.
N.B.:
Where the date of birth is unknown an approximate date of birth must be given to enable GEDCOM to determine the correct sequence of children in a family.
