Complete moduli for families over semistable curves

This note is but a research announcement, summarizing and explaining results proven and detailed in forthcoming papers. When one studies families of objects over curves, and the objects are parametrized by a Deligne-Mumford stack M, then the families are equivalent to morphisms of curves into M. In order to have complete moduli for such families, one needs to compactify the stack of stable maps into M. It turns out that in the boundary, the curve must acquire extra structure and you'd better read the paper to see what that structure is. Applications to fibered surfaces (see math.AG/9804097), admissible covers, and level structures are discussed.