About GEDCOM Files

GEDCOM Explained

I frequently mention the acronym “GEDCOM” in this newsletter. This week a reader wrote to me with an excellent question: “What is GEDCOM?” I realized that I haven’t explained this buzzword in a long, long time. So, here is a brief, non-technical explanation of the term for the newer subscribers to this publication.

GEDCOM 101

Very simply, a GEDCOM file is a basic text file written in plain text that holds most of the information of your database in a structured manner so that it can be read by any program that imports the file.