A GEDCOM file is a family tree written out as plain text, in a format that every genealogy program and website can read. It is how a tree gets from Ancestry to RootsMagic, from a cousin's computer to yours, or from a website you are leaving to one you are joining. The file usually ends in .ged.

Where it came from

The name stands for Genealogical Data Communication. The format was created in 1984 by the genealogy department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the organization behind FamilySearch. It went through several versions in the 1990s; version 5.5.1, from 1999, became the one everything uses. A new version, GEDCOM 7, was published in 2021 and is slowly being adopted.

Forty years is a very long time for a file format. GEDCOM has lasted because it is simple, and because nothing else ever got everyone to agree.

What is in it

People, with names, sex, and dated events: birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial, occupation, residence, and so on. Families, linking spouses and children. Sources and citations. Notes. Repositories (the places records are kept). References to photos and documents.

What is not in it

  • The photos and documents themselves. A GEDCOM contains file names, not files. This is the single most common surprise for people opening one for the first time; there is a whole guide about it.
  • DNA data. Not part of the format.
  • Anything a website computed rather than you entered: hints, matches, suggested relatives.

What it looks like

0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME John /Smith/
1 SEX M
1 BIRT
2 DATE 14 MAR 1892
2 PLAC Boston, Massachusetts

A number, a tag, a value. The number is how deep the line is nested. That is the whole grammar. The structure guide walks through it.

Why you would want one

Because it is yours. Whatever website you use, an export on your own disk survives their price changes and their decisions. Because it is the way to move between tools. And because it is what GED-VIEW opens: no account anywhere is needed to look at a GEDCOM, just the file.

Next

If the tree lives on a website, export a GEDCOM today. The export guides cover each site. Then open it in GED-VIEW.