What is a GEDCOM file?

Where GEDCOM comes from

GEDCOM stands for GEnealogical Data COMmunication. It was developed by the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which runs FamilySearch, and the church still publishes the specification at gedcom.io.

Version 5.5.1, published in 1999, became the de facto standard: Ancestry, MyHeritage, Gramps, RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker and almost every other program can read it. GEDCOM 7.0, released in 2021, tidies up the format (UTF-8 only, clearer rules, a way to bundle media in a zip called GEDZIP), but many programs still export 5.5.1 by default.

What is inside a .ged file

Open a GEDCOM file in any text editor and you will see one fact per line. Each line starts with a level number, then a tag, then a value. Level 0 starts a record, level 1 belongs to the record above it, level 2 belongs to the level 1 line above it, and so on. Records are named with cross-reference ids such as @I1@ for a person and @F1@ for a family.

0 HEAD
1 SOUR FamilyTrees
2 NAME Family Trees Web
1 GEDC
2 VERS 5.5.1
2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED
1 CHAR UTF-8
0 @I1@ INDI
1 NAME Margaret /Hale/
2 GIVN Margaret
2 SURN Hale
2 NICK Peggy
1 SEX F
1 BIRT
2 DATE 12 MAR 1931
2 PLAC Galway, Ireland
1 FAMS @F1@
0 @I2@ INDI
1 NAME Thomas /Hale/
1 SEX M
1 FAMS @F1@
0 @F1@ FAM
1 HUSB @I2@
1 WIFE @I1@
1 MARR
2 DATE ABT 1952
0 TRLR

This is a short export from Family Trees, trimmed to the essentials. INDI is a person, FAM is a family that joins partners (HUSB, WIFE) and their children (CHIL), and each person points back to their families with FAMS (as a partner) or FAMC (as a child). ABT 1952 is an approximate date.

What a GEDCOM file does not hold

• Photos and documents. A GEDCOM can point to media files with OBJE links, but the pictures themselves live outside the file. Copy them separately.
• Website-only extras. DNA matches, record hints, comments and anything else specific to one website stay on that website.
• Every custom field. Programs add their own tags that start with an underscore (such as _FREL). Other programs may ignore tags they do not know.

Character sets

Older files may be written in ANSEL, a library character set for accented letters, or in Windows or Mac encodings. Newer files use UTF-8 or UTF-16. The header line 1 CHAR says which one the file claims to use, though files sometimes claim one set and contain another. Family Trees reads all of these and checks the bytes, so names such as Muñoz or Gräfin come through intact.

How to open a GEDCOM file

Double-clicking a .ged file usually does nothing useful, because it is data, not a document. Import it into a genealogy program instead. In Family Trees you can import a GEDCOM in the browser at familytreesapp.com/family/import; see importing a GEDCOM into Family Trees for what happens to each part of the file.

Questions

Is GEDCOM the same as a .ged file?

Yes. GEDCOM is the format and .ged is the usual file extension. Some programs also write .gedcom. Ancestry delivers its export inside a .zip, so unzip it first to get the .ged file.

Which GEDCOM version should I export?

Choose 5.5.1 when the program asks, unless you know the receiving program reads GEDCOM 7. Version 5.5.1 is the one nearly every genealogy program can import, including Family Trees.

Does a GEDCOM file include photos?

No. A GEDCOM is text only. It can contain links to where photos were stored, but the image files are not inside it, so photos have to be added again or copied separately.

Can I edit a GEDCOM file by hand?

You can, since it is plain text, but a missing or misnumbered line can break the links between people. It is safer to edit the tree in a genealogy program and export a fresh file.

Sources

• GEDCOM specifications, FamilySearch

Links go to other sites. Checked 19 October 2026.

Questions? Email support@familytreesapp.com and a person will reply.