  We generalize theorems of Deligne-Mumford and de Jong on semi-stable
modifications of families of proper curves. The main result states that after a
generically \'etale alteration of the base any (not necessarily proper) family
of multipointed curves with semi-stable generic fiber admits a minimal
semi-stable modification. The latter can also be characterized by the property
that its geometric fibers have no certain exceptional components. The main step
of our proof is uniformization of one-dimensional extensions of valued fields.
Riemann-Zariski spaces are then used to obtain the result over any integral
base.
