In one embodiment, at least a portion of an object model having at least one namespace is serialized. An ancestor namespace is searched for based on a current namespace declaration. The ancestor namespace is associated with an ancestor prefix and an ancestor uniform resource indicator (URI). The current namespace is associated with a current prefix and current URI. The search is performed to find an ancestor prefix matches the current prefix. When the current namespace is an implicit no default namespace and the ancestor namespace is an explicit default namespace based on, at least in part, the ancestor prefix, a serialized namespace declaration is generated for the current namespace.