NAME
    Gedcom - a class to manipulate Gedcom genealogy files

    Version 1.05 - 20th July 1999

DESCRIPTION
    Copyright 1998-1999, Paul Johnson (pjcj@transeda.com)

    This software is free. It is licensed under the same terms as Perl
    itself.

    The latest version of this software should be available from my
    homepage: http://www.transeda.com/pjcj

    This module provides for manipulation of Gedcom files. Gedcom is a
    format for storing genealogical information designed by The Church of
    Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (http://www.lds.org). Information
    about Gedcom is available as a zip file at
    ftp://gedcom.org/pub/genealogy/gedcom/gedcom55.zip. Unfortunately, this
    is only usable if you can access a PC running Windows of some
    description. Part of the reason I wrote this module is because I don't
    do that.

    The Gedcom format is specified in a grammar file (gedcom-5.5.grammar).
    Gedcom.pm parses the grammar which is then used to validate and allow
    manipulation of the Gedcom file. I have only used Gedcom.pm with version
    5.5 of the Gedcom grammar, which I had to modify slightly to correct a
    few errors. The advantage of this approach is that Gedcom.pm should be
    useful if the Gedcom grammar is ever updated. It also made the software
    easier to write, and probably more dependable too. I suppose this is the
    virtue of laziness shining through.

    The vice of laziness is also shining brightly - I need to document how
    to use this module in much greater detail. This is happening - this
    release has more documentation than the previous ones - but if you would
    like information feel free to send me mail.

    This module provides some functions which work over the entire Gedcom
    file, such as reformatting dates, renumbering entries and ordering the
    entries. It also allows access to individuals, and then to relations of
    individuals, for example sons, siblings, spouse, parents and so forth.

    This release includes the beginnings of a lines2perl program to convert
    LifeLines programs to Perl.

    Note that this is an early release of this software - caveat emptor.

    Should you find this software useful, or if you make changes to it, or
    if you would like me to make changes to it, please send me mail. I would
    like to have some sort of an idea of the use this software is getting.
    Apart from being of interest to me, this will guide my decisions when I
    feel the need to make changes to the interface.

    There is a low volume mailing list available for discussing the use of
    Perl in conjunction with genealogical work. This is an appropriate forum
    for discussing Gedcom.pm. To subscribe to the regular list, send a
    message to majordomo@icomm.ca and put subscribe perl-gedcom as the body
    of the message. To get on the digest version of the list, put subscribe
    perl-gedcom-digest.

    To store my genealogy I wrote a syntax file (ged.vim) and used vim
    (http://www.vim.org) to enter the data, and Gedcom.pm to validate and
    manipulate it. I find this to be a nice solution.