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GEDCOM how-to guides

Choose the task that matches your file. Keep your original GEDCOM, review the proposed changes, and save each output under a new name. The tools read files in your browser. Optional AI actions send the text described beside their buttons after you choose to send it.

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Open an unfamiliar file, understand its contents, or check it before an import.

File Inspector on a clean export: the header naming GEDCOM 5.5.1 and Ahnenblatt 2.99g, and Records by type counting 20 INDI and 11 FAM.

What is a GEDCOM file

A plain text format for exchanging family trees. Learn how its records and pointers work, and what to check before another program imports it.

Beginner · 10 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

GEDCOM Viewer with a person open: the searchable people list on the left and the selected person's names, events, parents and children on the right.

Read a GEDCOM without installing anything

Someone emailed you a .ged file. Open it as people, families and a pedigree in a browser tab, with nothing uploaded and nothing installed.

Beginner · 10 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

It will not open, or it opened wrong

Recover a file, interpret an error, or repair names that display with the wrong characters.

Corrupted File Recovery after a broken file loads: byte accounting reading 542 kept plus 0 dropped against 542 input, a records table where TRLR goes from 0 to 1, and a re-levelled line at 60 percent confidence.

How to fix a GEDCOM file that will not open

Inspect an import failure, review structural recovery and its loss report, then validate the output before a test import. Keep the original export.

Beginner · 15 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

File Inspector on a broken file: a Problems table listing level-jump as an error at line 15 and missing-trlr as a warning with no line.

GEDCOM error messages, decoded

Use an import error as a starting point. Check the file's structure, encoding and pointers before choosing a repair, and review what recovery changes.

Beginner · 15 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

Encoding Repair on an ANSEL file: the verdict block where the header says ANSEL, the parser read it as ANSEL and the bytes are ANSEL, with the header rewrite to UTF-8 named.

What is ANSEL, and why your names look wrong

Your file says 1 CHAR ANSEL and the accents came out as separate marks. ANSEL puts the accent before the letter, and Unicode puts it after.

Intermediate · 15 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

Share or move your tree

Choose the branch and destination, review living relatives' privacy, and keep media links usable.

Living Person Privatiser on a 20-person export: 11 people treated as living, 9 dead, cutoff year 1926, and the table of rules that decided each verdict.

How to prepare a GEDCOM for GEDmatch

Prepare the branch you intend to share, redact living people's details, review privacy limits, and validate the file before a GEDmatch upload.

Intermediate · 25 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

Dialect Report on an Ancestry-shaped file: the producer identified as Ancestry.com Member Trees at 98 percent, and file facts counting 11 custom tags across 16 lines.

Which custom tags your destination may lose

Compare dated compatibility warnings for six destinations. Count the custom tags at risk, check the evidence, and test what your import route preserves.

Intermediate · 20 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

Is this the same person twice

Two records, one person, or two people who share a name.

Merge Workbench comparing two records field by field, with a keep, keep-both or drop choice on every row and the resulting record on the right.

How to undo a merge you should not have made

Restore a merge from its exported inverse when the data survives and still matches. Check recovery limits, preserve backups, and validate the restored records.

Intermediate · 15 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

Sources and next research steps

Organize the evidence you have and plan searches for what your file does not yet document.

Research Gap Planner showing a local research plan from a synthetic GEDCOM, with gap counts, filter controls and the optional model-ordering disclosure.

How to plan your next genealogy research steps

Find gaps in your GEDCOM, review archive suggestions, and save a research plan. Use optional AI ordering without treating suggestions as evidence.

Intermediate · 20 minutes · checked 6 Sep 2026

Convert GEDCOM versions

Check the destination's accepted version and inspect conversion warnings before importing.

Before you use a guide

The checked date records our review against the GEDCOM Tools implementation. Screenshots use public test files, so your counts and names will differ. Destination services change their import behavior; test a copy before replacing a tree you use.

A clean file check cannot prove a family relationship. Compare identity changes with source records, inspect privacy findings before sharing, and keep reports with the exact file you checked.

index.md, 4,090 characters. The same bytes answer at /how-to.md.

Every article is a plain markdown file: add .md to any of the 22 addresses to read the source it was built from. For agents has the rest of the machine-readable surface. A step that no longer matches the tool is a bug: report it.