One community, one standard

Family History Information Standards Organisation, or FHISO, is a newly-formed international organisation created to develop standards for the digital representation and sharing of family history and genealogical information. The standards will solve today’s interoperability issues independently of technology platforms, genealogy products or services. They will provide opportunities for innovation and will address robust user requirements such as search, capture and research administration.

FHISO will be a nonprofit, community-owned organisation. Our members will work transparently and collaboratively to identify, develop and maintain voluntary, open, consensus-based technical standards for international use. Our work includes publishing the standards, including the relevant documentation, and providing further services to encourage acceptance and adoption of the published standards. FHISO standards will be publicly available at zero or minimal cost on a non-discriminatory basis. Anyone will be able to implement the standards for any purpose without royalty or license fees.

Membership will be available to all who participate in the global family history and genealogical community.

FHISO’s success depends on the voluntary participation of all the global stakeholder groups. In the standards-setting process, there is no substitute for the active involvement of vendors, developers, technologists, users and family history or genealogy organisations.

FHISO is the sponsor of the BetterGEDCOM wiki – the grassroots effort powered by ideas that got it all started.