GEDCOM is the universal language of genealogy — the format that lets you move your family tree between Ancestry, FamilySearch, and every other platform without losing data.
If you have ever tried to move your family tree from one genealogy platform to another, you have almost certainly encountered GEDCOM. It is the file format that makes genealogy data portable — the difference between your research being locked inside one application and being freely transferable to any platform that supports it. This guide explains what GEDCOM is, what it contains, and how to use it practically.
GEDCOM stands for Genealogical Data Communication. It was created in 1984 by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church), which has one of the largest genealogy research programmes in the world. Their motivation was straightforward: they had accumulated enormous quantities of family history data and needed a standardized format to exchange it between their own systems and with other researchers.
The format was published openly, and within a decade it had become the de facto standard for the entire genealogy industry. Today, every major platform — Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, MacFamilyTree, Gramps, RootsMagic, and dozens of others — can export and import GEDCOM files. The most widely used version is GEDCOM 5.5.1, published in 1999 and still the dominant standard more than 25 years later.
A GEDCOM file is a plain-text file with the extension .ged. It stores family tree data in a hierarchical, tag-based format. Opening one in a text editor reveals rows like this:
Each individual (INDI), family unit (FAM), and source (SOUR) is given a unique identifier (like @I1@). Tags describe the type of data: NAME, SEX, BIRT (birth), DEAT (death), PLAC (place), and so on. The numbers at the start of each line indicate the hierarchical level — 0 is the top level, 1 is a sub-field of the record above it, 2 is a sub-field of the field above that.
A GEDCOM file can contain:
In Ancestry, navigate to your tree, click the tree name at the top to open the tree settings, then select Export Tree. Ancestry generates a .ged file and downloads it to your computer. Note that Ancestry does not include photographs in the GEDCOM export — only the data fields.
FamilySearch allows you to export individual person records but does not support full-tree GEDCOM export directly. To export an entire subtree, use a third-party tool such as Ancestral Quest or RootsMagic which can connect to FamilySearch and download selected lineages as GEDCOM.
In MyHeritage, go to Family Tree → Manage trees, select your tree, and choose Export tree to GEDCOM. MyHeritage includes photo links in the export, though the actual image files must be downloaded separately.
Open Build My Family and go to the dashboard. Click Import GEDCOM (or drag the .ged file onto the dashboard). The importer reads all individual records and family group records and creates member cards with relationship links automatically. Dates, birthplaces, and any notes are imported into the corresponding fields on each member's card.
Tip: After importing, use Auto-Structure (the workflow icon in the toolbar) to lay out the imported tree automatically. Large imported trees can arrive with all cards stacked at the origin point — Auto-Structure separates and arranges them into a readable hierarchy in one click.
GEDCOM has served the genealogy community well for 40 years, but it has real limitations that become apparent when moving complex trees between platforms:
Despite these limitations, GEDCOM remains the best way to move family tree data between platforms. For most research purposes, the core data — names, dates, places, and relationships — transfers reliably between any two platforms that support the 5.5.1 standard.
Build My Family exports clean GEDCOM 5.5.1 files compatible with Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Gramps, and MacFamilyTree. Free, no account required.
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