Genealogical Data Communication (GEDCOM) is a specification for storing and exchanging genealogical data. It was created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1984, and has become the de-facto standard used worldwide. The current version is 5.5.5 and is the version supported by tidyged.
A GEDCOM file is a plain text file (with extension .ged or .GED), which contains records. These records contain information on:
vignette("family_group_records"))vignette("individual_records"))vignette("multimedia_records"))vignette("source_records"))vignette("repository_records"))vignette("note_records"))There are also special records that appear once and only once in a file; a header (at the beginning), trailer (at the end), and submitter record (directly after the header).
A sample file looks like this:
readLines(system.file("extdata", "555SAMPLE.GED", package = "tidyged.io"))
#> [1] "0 HEAD"
#> [2] "1 GEDC"
#> [3] "2 VERS 5.5.5"
#> [4] "2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED"
#> [5] "3 VERS 5.5.5"
#> [6] "1 CHAR UTF-8"
#> [7] "1 SOUR GS"
#> [8] "2 NAME GEDCOM Specification"
#> [9] "2 VERS 5.5.5"
#> [10] "2 CORP gedcom.org"
#> [11] "3 ADDR"
#> [12] "4 CITY LEIDEN"
#> [13] "3 WWW www.gedcom.org"
#> [14] "1 DATE 2 Oct 2019"
#> [15] "2 TIME 0:00:00"
#> [16] "1 FILE 555Sample.ged"
#> [17] "1 LANG English"
#> [18] "1 SUBM @U1@"
#> [19] "0 @U1@ SUBM"
#> [20] "1 NAME Reldon Poulson"
#> [21] "1 ADDR "
#> [22] "2 ADR1 1900 43rd Street West"
#> [23] "2 CITY Billings"
#> [24] "2 STAE Montana"
#> [25] "2 POST 68051"
#> [26] "2 CTRY United States of America"
#> [27] "1 PHON +1 (406) 555-1232"
#> [28] "0 @I1@ INDI"
#> [29] "1 NAME Robert Eugene /Williams/"
#> [30] "2 SURN Williams"
#> [31] "2 GIVN Robert Eugene"
#> [32] "1 SEX M"
#> [33] "1 BIRT"
#> [34] "2 DATE 2 Oct 1822"
#> [35] "2 PLAC Weston, Madison, Connecticut, United States of America"
#> [36] "2 SOUR @S1@"
#> [37] "3 PAGE Sec. 2, p. 45"
#> [38] "1 DEAT"
#> [39] "2 DATE 14 Apr 1905"
#> [40] "2 PLAC Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States of America"
#> [41] "1 BURI"
#> [42] "2 PLAC Spring Hill Cemetery, Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, United States of America"
#> [43] "1 FAMS @F1@"
#> [44] "1 FAMS @F2@"
#> [45] "1 RESI "
#> [46] "2 DATE from 1900 to 1905"
#> [47] "0 @I2@ INDI"
#> [48] "1 NAME Mary Ann /Wilson/"
#> [49] "2 SURN Wilson"
#> [50] "2 GIVN Mary Ann"
#> [51] "1 SEX F"
#> [52] "1 BIRT"
#> [53] "2 DATE BEF 1828"
#> [54] "2 PLAC Connecticut, United States of America"
#> [55] "1 FAMS @F1@"
#> [56] "0 @I3@ INDI"
#> [57] "1 NAME Joe /Williams/"
#> [58] "2 SURN Williams"
#> [59] "2 GIVN Joe"
#> [60] "1 SEX M"
#> [61] "1 BIRT"
#> [62] "2 DATE 11 Jun 1861"
#> [63] "2 PLAC Idaho Falls, Bonneville, Idaho, United States of America"
#> [64] "1 FAMC @F1@"
#> [65] "1 FAMC @F2@"
#> [66] "2 PEDI adopted"
#> [67] "1 ADOP "
#> [68] "2 DATE 16 Mar 1864"
#> [69] "0 @F1@ FAM"
#> [70] "1 HUSB @I1@"
#> [71] "1 WIFE @I2@"
#> [72] "1 CHIL @I3@"
#> [73] "1 MARR"
#> [74] "2 DATE Dec 1859"
#> [75] "2 PLAC Rapid City, Pennington, South Dakota, United States of America"
#> [76] "0 @F2@ FAM"
#> [77] "1 HUSB @I1@"
#> [78] "1 CHIL @I3@"
#> [79] "0 @S1@ SOUR"
#> [80] "1 DATA"
#> [81] "2 EVEN BIRT, DEAT, MARR"
#> [82] "3 DATE FROM Jan 1820 TO DEC 1825"
#> [83] "3 PLAC Madison, Connecticut, United States of America"
#> [84] "2 AGNC Madison County Court"
#> [85] "1 TITL Madison County Birth, Death, and Marriage Records"
#> [86] "1 ABBR Madison BMD Records"
#> [87] "1 REPO @R1@"
#> [88] "2 CALN 13B-1234.01"
#> [89] "0 @R1@ REPO"
#> [90] "1 NAME Family History Library"
#> [91] "1 ADDR"
#> [92] "2 ADR1 35 N West Temple Street"
#> [93] "2 CITY Salt Lake City"
#> [94] "2 STAE Utah"
#> [95] "2 POST 84150"
#> [96] "2 CTRY United States of America"
#> [97] "0 TRLR"Each record is a nested structure containing one or more lines where the number at the beginning of the line indicates the level in the hierarchy. New records begin at level 0. In the above file, the submitter record begins at line 19.
You can learn more about the structure of GEDCOM files and tidyged representations of them in vignette("implementation").
The GEDCOM 5.5.5 specification is substantial (at 166 pages in length), describing the strict rules around the specific set of tags and hierarchical structures allowed for each record type, and this is what the tidyged package is designed to automate.
GEDCOM 5.5.5 is a relatively recent update, considering the previous release, 5.5.1, was first released in 1999. Version 5.5.5 is a maintenance release which simplifies and clarifies the standard considerably, but has not yet been embraced widely in the genealogical community. Notwithstanding, it is the best version of GEDCOM available which doesn’t stray from the standards put in place over the last decades. A good proportion of genealogists use products like Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, and Gramps, all of which extend the GEDCOM grammar in different ways.
GEDCOM 5.5.5 files produced by tidyged should be compatible with other readers of GEDCOM 5.5.1 files (the most commonly supported version). In the event that a reader does not accept the file, all that should be required is the manual changing of the third line value to ‘5.5.1’. Version 5.5.1 files are not compatible with tidyged.