If you’ve spent any time in genealogy software or online family tree platforms, you’ve almost certainly encountered the term GEDCOM. You may have clicked “Export GEDCOM” without thinking much about it, or been asked to upload one and wondered what exactly you were sharing. For experienced researchers, a solid understanding of GEDCOM — what it is, how it works, and where it falls short — is genuinely useful. This is that overview.
What Is GEDCOM?
GEDCOM stands for Genealogical Data Communication. It is a plain-text file format — with the extension .ged — designed to store and transfer genealogical data between different software applications and platforms. Think of it as a universal translator for family tree data: it doesn’t belong to any one program, so it can be read and written by nearly all of them.
GEDCOM was created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (through its Family History Department, which also operates FamilySearch) and first released in 1984.[1] The goal was straightforward: allow genealogists to move their research freely between different tools without losing their work. Forty years later, it remains the de facto standard for genealogy data exchange, supported by virtually every major genealogy application and platform in use today.
A Brief History of Versions
GEDCOM has evolved through several versions over the decades. For most of its history, GEDCOM 5.5.1 — finalized in 2019 after more than twenty years as a draft — was the working standard.[2] It remains the most widely supported version, and the one most genealogy software exports by default.
In 2021, FamilySearch released GEDCOM 7.0[3], a significant modernization of the format. Version 7.0 brings improved Unicode (Universal Transformation Format 8-bit, or UTF-8) encoding for non-Latin characters, better handling of multimedia references, cleaner handling of dates and places, and improved support for same-sex relationships and non-binary individuals.[4] It has been actively maintained since release, with version 7.0.17 issued in February 2026.[5]
The practical reality for researchers today is a split landscape: GEDCOM 7.0 is the current standard, but GEDCOM 5.5.1 is still what most software actually produces and consumes. When in doubt about compatibility, exporting in 5.5.1 format will reach the widest audience.
What a GEDCOM File Actually Contains
A GEDCOM file is a structured plain-text document — you can open one in any text editor and read it, though it takes some practice to follow the formatting. The file is organized around individual records and family records, linked together by internal reference codes.
A typical GEDCOM file can contain:
- Names (including alternate names and name variants)
- Birth, marriage, death, and other event dates and places
- Relationships — parent/child, spouse, step-relations
- Source citations and notes
- References to media files (photos, documents) — though the media files themselves are not embedded in the GEDCOM
- Repository information
- Researcher/submitter information
What a GEDCOM file does not contain is the actual images, scanned documents, or audio files you may have attached to your tree. Those travel separately. When you export a GEDCOM and share it with someone, they receive the data structure — names, dates, relationships, notes, citations — but not the attached media. This is one of the format’s most commonly misunderstood limitations.
How to Export a GEDCOM
Almost every genealogy platform and desktop application has a GEDCOM export function, though the exact location varies by software. Look for it under File → Export, or in your account/tree settings on online platforms. Common options you may be asked about during export include:
Which individuals to include: Most software lets you export your entire tree or a filtered subset — for example, only the direct ancestors of a specific person, or all descendants of a common ancestor. For sharing with WikiTree or a name study, exporting only the relevant branch is often cleaner than exporting everything.
Privacy settings: Reputable software will give you options to exclude or anonymize living individuals. This is important — never share a GEDCOM that includes full names, birth dates, and relationships for living people without careful consideration of their privacy.
Which version to export: If given a choice, GEDCOM 5.5.1 is the safest for compatibility. GEDCOM 7.0 is the better format technically, but not all receiving platforms support it fully yet.
How to Import a GEDCOM
Importing a GEDCOM is generally straightforward, but there are a few things worth knowing before you start:
Review before you import. Before bringing someone else’s GEDCOM into your own research, look it over. Unsourced data, placeholder entries, and errors in others’ trees are common — and importing them wholesale can introduce problems that are tedious to untangle later.
Importing usually creates a new tree, not a merge. On most platforms, uploading a GEDCOM generates a separate tree rather than automatically merging into an existing one. If you want to incorporate the data into your main tree, you’ll typically need to do that work manually or with merge tools.
Expect some data loss. Because different software programs implement GEDCOM with varying degrees of strictness — and some use proprietary extensions the standard doesn’t recognize — information can get dropped or garbled in translation. Custom fields, certain media references, and program-specific tags are common casualties. Always review an import carefully before relying on it.
Character encoding issues. Older GEDCOM files (pre-7.0) sometimes have encoding problems, particularly with accented characters, non-Latin scripts, or special characters in names and place names. If you’re working with international research, this is worth watching for.
GEDCOM and WikiTree
WikiTree accepts GEDCOM uploads, and it’s a good way to get your existing research into the platform quickly. When you upload a GEDCOM to WikiTree, the site runs a GEDCompare report that shows you how many of the individuals in your file already exist in WikiTree’s global tree. This is a valuable first step — it tells you where your research connects to existing profiles rather than duplicating them.
A few things to keep in mind for WikiTree specifically: WikiTree’s sourcing standards are higher than many platforms, so profiles imported from a GEDCOM without source citations will be flagged. Plan to review and improve sourcing on imported profiles, especially for key ancestors you intend to manage actively.
GEDCOM as a Backup Strategy
One of the most underused applications of GEDCOM is as a regular backup of your research. If you maintain your primary tree on an online platform — Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, or anywhere else — you are dependent on that platform’s continued operation and your continued access to it. Exporting a GEDCOM periodically (after major research sessions, or at least a few times a year) gives you a portable, software-independent copy of your work that you can store locally and restore to any platform if needed.
Label your exports clearly with the date — for example, DillmanTree_2026-05.ged — and store them in at least two places. It takes five minutes and is genuinely good research practice.
The Honest Limitations
GEDCOM is indispensable, but it has real limitations that experienced researchers should understand. The format was designed in the 1980s, and despite updates, it struggles with some aspects of modern genealogical research: complex blended families and non-traditional relationships can be awkward to represent; source citations, while supported, are handled inconsistently across software; and DNA evidence has no standard representation in the format at all.
GEDCOM 7.0 addresses many of these issues, but until software adoption catches up, the full benefits of the new standard aren’t yet accessible to most researchers in practice.
None of this diminishes GEDCOM’s value — it remains the only truly universal format for moving genealogical data between systems. Just go in with realistic expectations about what survives the journey.
Further Reading
The official home of the GEDCOM specification, including the full technical documentation and a useful Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section, is at gedcom.io. For those interested in the technical details of GEDCOM 7.0 specifically, the FamilySearch specification is published at gedcom.io/specifications.
GEDCOM files use the .ged extension and can be opened, exported, and imported by virtually all genealogy software and major online platforms. When sharing research, always review privacy settings to protect living individuals.
Sources
- FamilySearch, “GEDCOM,” familysearch.org/en/wiki/GEDCOM (accessed May 2026).
- FamilySearch, “GEDCOM Standard Release 5.5.1,” 2019, gedcom.io/specs/ (accessed May 2026).
- FamilySearch, “What is GEDCOM 7.0?” familysearch.org (accessed May 2026).
- FamilySearch GEDCOM Specification v7.0, gedcom.io/specifications/FamilySearchGEDCOMv7.html (accessed May 2026).
- FamilySearch GEDCOM Specification v7.0.18, gedcom.io/specifications/FamilySearchGEDCOMv7.html (accessed May 2026).
AI Disclosure: This article was researched and written with the assistance of Claude, an AI assistant developed by Anthropic. All facts have been reviewed for accuracy, but readers are encouraged to verify information independently, particularly for time-sensitive details such as pricing and software versions.
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